#wheniwaspulledover

I was pulled over on the afternoon of May 16, 2014 in the city of Madison in Madison County, Mississippi, and I was alone, en route to my office when I was driving through a mixed-use area – combination residential and business – and I didn’t realize I was speeding at the time until I looked up and saw the blue lights in my rear view and heard the siren. And then of course, I was nervous because I didn’t think I did anything wrong to be pulled over, but I didn’t realize that I was going almost 10 miles above the speed limit. It was posted 25 – actually, it was 30 – and I was driving 46 miles per hour. So I was pulled over for speeding.

I was in a pretty well-lit area, it was daytime, and I just didn’t want to argue. I pulled over, and I admitted that I was speeding, and the officer proceeded to write me a ticket. And I didn’t even bother asking for a warning because, after all, he clocked me speeding, and I didn’t want to argue.

So I just accepted the ticket and I went about my way, but I was very nervous because my phone died, my battery was really low, and I was trying to let my boss know that I was on my way back, but the phone died as I was being pulled over. So I didn’t know what would happen or if anything bad would happen. But the officer was a white man, younger than 40, and he was nice and courteous as he could be, and he just warned me my court date, and sent me on my way.

So that was my last time being pulled over – not the first time for speeding, but any time I do speed or break a traffic law, I accept the consequences, pay my fines, and keep it moving. But every time I get pulled over, it’s the same feeling: goose bumps, anxiety, and uncertainty over what could happen, especially being alone as a young black woman driving a vehicle.

- Terricha Phillips

Hi, my name’s Kevin, and the last time I was pulled over was about six weeks ago when I was living in Iowa. I was working on a presidential campaign this summer in a small town in southeast Iowa called Mount Pleasant, which is about a 45-minute-hour drive to Iowa City. On my last weekend on the campaign, I was going to Iowa City for my final goodbye with my team in the region. I went to Iowa City plenty of times that summer, but usually someone else was driving or someone was with me, but on this last day, I was driving myself up and I was talking to my friend on the phone — with Bluetooth, of course.

And, as I approached the city, I saw a bunch of exits that kind of sounded familiar, and I took one into what I found out was University Heights. And I don’t know if there’s a sign and I missed it because it was late at night or if it was a speed trap, but you go from doing like 80 on the highway to having to do literally 20 miles an hour in University Heights.

Moments after I pulled off the highway, I got pulled over and I hung up on my friend and I was genuinely like, ‘What’s gonna happen now? What am I being pulled over for? This is curious.’

Hey, my name is Dexter, I’m black, and I’m from southern California.

When I was in college, which was a few years ago now, a lot of friends used to make fun of me because I was really strict about how I drove. If you got in my car, you couldn’t ride without a seatbelt, I wouldn’t speed – I would never go over the speed limit – I wouldn’t make illegal U-turns, things like that. And so my friends would kind of joke with me and say, ‘Oh you’re a goodie two-shoes’ or whatever. Which is especially kind of funny for them, I guess, because I had this sports car which, it wasn’t expensive, but you know, I kept it clean and it looked nice.

And one of these friends who used to kind of poke fun at me – I won’t say what she was, but young lady my age, and I'll just say that she wasn’t black and she wasn’t brown. I don’t remember where we were going but it was after dark and I think picked her up from her place, we were driving, and I think we got about two blocks before we were pulled over.

So I saw the flashing lights and the sirens and I pulled over and they didn’t say I was speeding, they didn’t say tags were expired, anything like that, they just said they were checking, they were just checking, that’s what they said.

And they pulled the flashlight out, they shined it on me, they shined it on her, they asked if she was OK, and she said yeah. And then let me go once he saw my license and registration.

So I think she was a little confused, but we kept driving. And I think I got maybe another 10-15 blocks or so before I got pulled over again. Same thing happened — I wasn’t speeding, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, they just pulled over and they said they were just checking, this was a different officer. And again, I showed my driver’s license, I showed my registration, I was very police — ‘Yes sir, no sir’ — and eventually they said ‘OK. Sorry for taking up your time, go ahead.’

As I was driving, I realized that the person sitting next to me was shaking, and I looked over at her and she asked me, ‘Is this what happens? Is this what it’s like?’ And I didn’t really know how to answer her because yeah, it is. And black people, black men do get pulled over a lot for no reason, and I’d been profiled constantly, and it was to the point where actually it didn’t bother me anymore because I was so used to it. But it really affected her, she was actually furious — she was saying ‘I can’t believe they’d do this, this is wrong, we have to do something about this, can’t we call somebody, can’t we go anywhere.’

Maybe I was a little insensitive but I said no, I don’t think so – I can’t think of anything to do right now, let’s just go to wherever we’re going. And she started crying and I didn’t know what to do, and so we went wherever we were going – I don’t remember at this point – but she never rode with me anywhere ever again.

- Dexter Thomas 

I will commend this county policeman for taking reasonable and logic action to resolve a citizen’s problem. I only hope Ferguson and other low income black communities will receive reasonable police actions.

- Lynn Johnson 

The last time I had an interaction with law enforcement officers was a couple of years ago in Baltimore County, Maryland, where I reside. It was a late night, I was on my way to a McDonald’s to simply get some food, and I used my girlfriend’s car to drive to the McDonald’s.

This McDonald’s is less than a mile away from my residence. As I approached the traffic light — a red light — I noticed an officer pull up behind me. And I thought nothing of it at first, but then of course, being a person of color driving in the middle of the night, I knew that anything could happen. But again, I didn’t know if the officer was going to pull me over for some reason that I didn’t know, or let me go about my business.

I was committing no crimes, no traffic violations, I wasn’t doing anything wrong or intend to do anything wrong. But I know that all they need is a reason to pull you over with the hopes that they have some bigger issue to arrest you for or detain you for.

As I pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through, two officers turned on their squad car lights, and I stopped the vehicle. They approached the vehicle, and they asked me for the registration for the vehicle because for some reason, the registration wasn’t coming up in their database. I knew this to be false because I know that my girlfriend stays on top of that type of business. I also knew that the reason they pulled me over with such a false story was to get my I.D. in order to run it through their database to see if I had any type of outstanding warrants or anything like that — a bigger reason for them to, again, detain or arrest me.

This is all too common, and this is how most traffic stops begin. This is why most officers pick the low-hanging fruit to use a traffic stop to try to justify means to another end.

I waited patiently in the car and I felt embarrassed. I felt somewhat fearful — again, not because I was doing anything wrong, but just because of the history of law enforcement’s interaction with people of color.

The officers then came back to the car and told me that there was a mistake made, the registration checked out, but they were looking for people that were stealing cars in the area. And immediately felt like I was profiled, which is exactly what it was. And it just goes to show you that the issue of profiling is a big problem in our communities and police officers, law enforcement in general at large, need to learn how to deal with people of color and the communities that they police.

Had we had true community policing, those officers in that community would have known who I am, and would’ve had no reason to pull me over. But again, when you’re driving while black, that is justification enough for most law enforcement officials and agencies to feel as though they have unilateral authority to do what they do.

- Courtney