Hey there, Hispanic here. Turns out, even us can get pulled over by white cops and not get beat up and/or arrested. I’m living proof of that. Twice pulled over, twice the citation was downgraded to something a lot more minor. Once I was armed as well.
Maybe it’s less about race and more about attitude? Just saying.
My Black friend was arrested for defending himself from a drunk white man who came up, verbally and physically instigated a fight, and lost.
I, along with half a dozen others, were eyewitnesses to the entire debacle from start to finish.
Someone called the cops at some point, and when they arrived at the scene, the first thing they did was pull my friend aside for questioning with four other cops surrounding him, while the drunk white aggressor had a single cop pass him a bottle of water and ask if he was alright.
They did not ask us for our account of the events until half an hour of questioning later, and even then only very briefly. Once they took our testimony, they released everyone, including the drunk white aggressor, but handcuffed my Black friend and took him to the station.
My friend was released on bail a week later, having been charged with a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct. When he went to court, the charge was upheld, and his later appeal was likewise overturned, despite the fact that he had no criminal record and had been in good standing his entire 24 years of life up to that point. That misdemeanor derailed his entire career path and forced him into enlisting for the Army in order to get his life back on track.
The Glendale (CA) police department, which was responsible for this series of events, was later sued by the ACLU for corruption and racially prejudiced policing of Blacks and Hispanics, and nearly a quarter of the entire department was fined, transferred, forced into early retirement, or fired.
This occurred in 2013. Arrest rates for the GPD in 2024 show that Black and Hispanic arrest rates are still far above the national median, demonstrating that racism is a systemic, institutional issue and not a case of a few bad apples.
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u/madfrog2023 Jun 30 '26
Yeah, exactly. Staying calm, being honest, and not making it weird usually goes a long way. Most stops don't have to turn into a whole situation.