Building Owning While Brown
Sunday March 1, 2020 evening, as I was moving Boy Scout gear from the newer Mango House to the old one, I came around the corner in the old one, and there was a police parked in my parking garage, blocking my way. I could not have stopped further away unless I could see through walls. I honked to get his attention so he wasn’t surprised.
He jumped out of his car, swore at me, and pulled out his gun while running to my car. I heard a clickety click racheting type sound from his gun which, I’m not sure, but I think means he was getting ready to shoot me if he desired. I started recording. There is also police body camera video.
If you want a short news report on this, see NBC.
If you want a lengthy legal analysis of the situation by a fairly centrist, impartial source, see Audit The Audit. It ends with cop getting an F and me getting an A. No I don’t know who made it.
If you want to see a viral video, see NowThis., which includes me ranting on using your privilege.
If you have time, you can read some of the thousands of comments on those links, or find other links like those with even more comments. Then come to your own conclusions.
If you want to read my story, keep reading here:
As you see, he had his gun (with flashlight) at my head. I kept asking him to leave my property, and he repeatedly demanded for me to prove that it is my property. Instead of leaving he called in two other police to join him on my property, all of whom were then violating the 3rd amendment and 4th amendments.
They left after about 10 minutes, but not without him making every excuse as to why he was there: He said he was “writing up a report.” The report had nothing to do with my property. He says he “kicks people out” of my garage. Really? Whose decision is it as to who is on my property? He said I shouldn’t “drive up on a police like that,” even though he was on my property and I arrived same manner as I have hundreds of times. He said I attempted to assault him with my car. I had come around the corner and stopped as soon as I saw his car, and honked to announce my presence. And he said “I’m gonna figure out whose property this is because I’m not taking your word for it.”
I thought about calling 911, as I previously did when people on my property refuse to leave. When I call 911, they always ask if a weapon is involved. I would have said “Yes, a gun pointed at my head. It is scary, I fear for my life. Actually the guy with a gun brought two other friends with guns.” But I didn’t call, because when I do, it usually takes so long for the police to arrive, that the offender is already gone. In this case the police were the offenders.
He was parked in the north side garage of the old Mango House, halfway in the handicap spot (he had no handicap placard), and halfway blocking the path of travel of any vehicle, including mine. There is no use he has to society or me being there. He was sitting there because it was a place to relax on his shift, out of view, and out of the snow (you see snow in the videos).
The police are not terribly useful in my work. A couple times I have really needed their help, including when we had bomb threats. They told me “we have murders to deal with”. And when I call them to kick someone disorderly off my property, it always turns into an interrogation of me (the one asking for help) that has less to do with the topic at hand and more to do with asserting dominance. Their communication style is crazymaking. They cut me off while I’m trying to answer their questions, they say “just answer the question” (even though I am answering it), they laugh/smirk at my responses, and they say “that’s not what I’m asking.” They apply these techniques until I give up and exclaim “how can I help you?”
It’s not every police in every department, but it is most of them. It is their style of behavior. There might be a few good apples.
During the incident, I was upset because he was on my property without asking, because he pointed his gun at my head, because he was in my way of doing work, because he wouldn’t believe I owned the property, and because he said he kicks other people off my property without asking me.
I was also upset because he was gaslighting. Gaslighting is when you catch someone doing something wrong, and they try to convince everyone of an opposite reality. The classic example is when you catch your partner in an affair. Here the cop said I shouldn’t “drive up on a police like that,” that I “attempted to assault” him with my car, that I should be cited for reckless driving, and that he was “writing a report”. Those all obfuscated the fact that he was on my property without asking, and that he used excessive force. His ego needed placating, as one’s does after a narcissistic injury. I told him I had better things to do than to placate him.
That night after that incident, I felt guilty, like I instigated his aggressiveness. But after sleeping on it, I don’t think so. I was driving into my own property — he was startled, and jumped on the defensive.
I wrote this up, posted it on Facebook, my local state congresswoman saw it and asked the police chief to investigate. I knew an internal investigation would lead to nothing, because, well, how many times have you read the news talking about some investigation, only to have the issue disappear over time?
When the investigator cop called me, he told me that maybe the officer felt like he was being ambushed. I was not impressed by that notion. Do ambushers honk on arrival? He also asked me why I didn’t stay in my car when I was told to. I emailed him a response, where I told him to watch this video at 1:52.
I was then contacted by Officer Dudley, who seems to be the only non-white person in Aurora Police leadership, and who was jockeying to be elected as Aurora Police Chief. He asked to have a Zoom meeting with me, and we did for an hour, talking all aspects of the case and society. He then told me he can’t talk about the case because it’s an open investigation. This was more crazymaking.
I was too embarrassed to seek legal help, post my video online, or even share it with friends. The shame comes from trauma, from a lifetime of situations like this that all people of color face. Being doubted that I own the property felt worse than having a gun at my head. It resonated with being searched by the TSA dozens of times, having my color used against me in family court, being passed over for jobs, attracting dates who were looking for someone exotic, being used in promotional material for token purposes, being beaten by racist classmates, and having my fellow kindergartners call my grandfather “towel head” for his turban.
It reverberated through generations of British rule.
The main reason, by far, that I didn’t speak up was because last time this happened in a significant way, my ex wrote it up, and filed it in court, attempting to take our kid away from seeing me. No kidding.
That police, Justin Henderson, murdered someone named Shamikle Jackson just 6 months prior, in September 2019 — and had the case cleared by the same District Attorney that cleared the 3 cops that killed Elijah McClain in August 2019. That DA is David Young, who was busy adultering at that time. Now on this occasion, Justin Henderson failed to file the required report after using his weapon: He has no regard for rules. Do you really think that 6 months ago he was justified in murdering Shamikle Jackson? Here are some petitions to sign if you think petitioning will get Justin Henderson or Dave Young fired.
It wasn’t until the George Floyd protests that I felt any societal support on this. But then my shame gave way to helplessness. My posts about this incident got less attention on my business Facebook page than did my posts about falafel, despite a thousand progressive followers. I watched as countless white people denounced racism and police brutality with inconsequential words on social media. I even asked many of them very directly to do something about this investigation, and only a few did.
Posting support for a cause on social media feeds your ego and soothes your guilt, not much else.
When I finally got the courage to post the video to social media, the regular media started picking up on it, and thousands of people commented.
Most reflected support for me, especially on leftist or centrist media sources. But some, especially after it was on front page of Foxnews.com, bought the officer’s gaslit notion that I sped up to him to provoke him, which is actually impossible if one knows the layout — I came around a corner and stopped immediately. Had I entered the other direction I would have come around another corner the same distance away. It’s not a smart place for a cop to sit if he wants to avoid surprise. Some questioned why I would record the interaction, as if I had purposefully baited in order to record.
Some said that I should have been more docile after he had a gun to my face. I thought about this. In stressful situations, like a gun at one’s head, we go to reflex responses dictated by our pasts. For some people of color like me, we have a thousand previous traumas to draw from. If I were white with a whiter upbringing, I might have been able to speak softer, but if I were white, the officer would have treated me differently also. That police Justin Henderson was on autopilot also, from his childhood, which I’m guessing also included power struggles. Actually one of my staff’s sons went to high school with Justin Henderson and said he was a bully there.
Interestingly: most viewers were much more appalled at the police than I was! I’ve gotten used to this kind of stuff.
In some form of victim blaming, some would say this is “trauma repetition”, like I purposefully (or subconsciously) put myself in such positions. Like if I worked for a suburban clinic instead of private practice for refugees on East Colfax, this might not happen. Yes, if I had a whiter upbringing, I wouldn’t be doing the work I do, in the place I do, on a Sunday evening in the snow. I would be on the other end of the gun, with a badge.
But instead, I work to protect the minority, and he works to protect the majority.
Really, is it my job to make him comfortable enough to not shoot me?
Aurora has a problem with disorderly police, Colorado has a problem with police aggressiveness with guns, and the United States has a problem with excessive police force and racism.
If one is wondering why I even mention the race card here, one is living under a rock. If I looked like the policeman’s brother, he wouldn’t point a gun at my head on my own property, or even ask twice when I say this is my property. Just four months before this incident I wrote “For poc (people of color like me), guns in the hands of police are not even for our protection. We are just as likely to be at the wrong end.” And now I post a picture of being at the wrong end.
I often get asked why I do my work. This incident is actually a basis of much of it — helping colored people be buffered from, and navigate, a society that is not built for them — and in fact was founded on oppressing them. I take risks and navigate these things to help my refugee patients and tenants move forward. In this case it was moving gear for one of my refugee Scout units (our female Boy Scout group actually), but at other times it has been creating safe places for a dozen minority religious groups to practice their faith, helping dozens of refugee small businesses start, or creating culturally sensitive medical and dental care for tens of thousands of refugees. This is all as a private business, not a nonprofit nor government entity. This is part of doctoring, dentisting, Scouting, restauranting, small businessing, and property owning, in this neighborhood. In case you have read this far, and don’t know what work we do — I own two buildings called Mango House in Aurora Colorado, where I have a variety of services for refugees, including my medical clinic and Scout Units.
Update: Justin Henderson was suspended by his police department for this. That may sound impressive, but it wasnt: he was given 40 hours off work unpaid to be used nonconsecutively. Who wouldn’t like that? Still it shows the police department admitting guilt. I filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against him and the department, and their lawyers tried to get rid of the case. One federal judge denied them dropping the case, but another allowed it.
Some action points and takeaways:
- Reform the police. Defunding doesn’t mean totally eliminating, it means moving some money from policing to social services. Read this if you want background. If you don’t take action, this guy will kill next time (oh wait, he already killed last time), or someone else in his department will (oh wait, they already have, and they gleefully reenact the chokeholds).
- Guns are dumb. If you have one, get rid of it, and if you run programs (like Scouting) where you put guns in kids hands and teach them to use them, please stop doing that. Please stop putting your kids in front of violent TV or media, which is most of it, yes including star WARs. There is nothing honorable about the size of our military, the biggest perpetrator of violence on the planet. I work with thousands of patients who are refugees, which means they have been affected by government funded gun violence, and actually I used to clean up pollution from gun ranges as an environmental engineer. There are big negative effects to what some people consider a hobby, a means of getting food, a constitutional right, or a security. Like dead school kids. Your legal guns find their way into poor communities and cause death. As long as we have a culture of violence, we will have police who have been primed their whole life to shoot a brown man, and brown men who have been dealing with it their whole lives. These police can’t provide friendly customer service so long as they have to worry about a gun behind every encounter. Police violence is a reflection of our societal culture of violence.
- Again, maybe signing these petitions will get Justin Henderson or Dave Young fired?
“You were put here to protect us, but who protects us from you?” — a song from 30 years ago by BD
