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Veer's arrest (from a novel)
Jun. 4th, 2020 09:04 pmSo, I've been going back and forth deciding whether to post this or not. It's an excerpt from my unpublished novel. This isn't to promote it -- that'll be happening separately, and later.
This is a scene, originally written a few years ago, when one of my characters gets arrested. It isn't police brutality, it isn't racist, and it isn't murder, and the character in question isn't Black. That would make a big difference. There are two things going on here with the police - one is the blatant racism where the cops target Black people for special harassment, including frequent assault and murder.
The other dynamic in play is the nature of the police. The ones who do this are, simply, bullies. They have power and they enjoy exercising it. The reason they disproportionately target Black people is that they know they can get away with it, as systemic racism will have their backs. The DA will protect them, their fellow officers will stay silent, or actively help them cover up their crimes, internal investigations will ignore all but the most blatant violations. Cops will also do this kind of thing to anyone they think is an outsider, someone who won't have the resources to fight back, press charges or hold them accountable for their actions. Anybody who the public can say, "Well, they were just a --" fill in stoner, homeless, student, radical, whatever you want there.
Again, this is a fictional account. I'm not sharing this to detract from the larger conversation, but to add perhaps a bit of understanding. Maybe someone will read this and realize oh, that's what it's like, or maybe even somewhere a police officer might gain, even second or third hand, a tiny bit of understanding of what they're doing to the person, and their community at large, whenever they exercise their power like this.
In this scene, the character in question is a journalist, which is why, once she's in the back of the police car, her immediate thought is how to report the incident. This incident is fiction, but the details are all taken from real life and are the sort of thing that happens every single day in this country.
(I've cut out parts where it references the larger plot, as they're irrelevant to my purpose in sharing here. Michael is a homicide detective she'd been working with.)
( Read more... )
This is a scene, originally written a few years ago, when one of my characters gets arrested. It isn't police brutality, it isn't racist, and it isn't murder, and the character in question isn't Black. That would make a big difference. There are two things going on here with the police - one is the blatant racism where the cops target Black people for special harassment, including frequent assault and murder.
The other dynamic in play is the nature of the police. The ones who do this are, simply, bullies. They have power and they enjoy exercising it. The reason they disproportionately target Black people is that they know they can get away with it, as systemic racism will have their backs. The DA will protect them, their fellow officers will stay silent, or actively help them cover up their crimes, internal investigations will ignore all but the most blatant violations. Cops will also do this kind of thing to anyone they think is an outsider, someone who won't have the resources to fight back, press charges or hold them accountable for their actions. Anybody who the public can say, "Well, they were just a --" fill in stoner, homeless, student, radical, whatever you want there.
Again, this is a fictional account. I'm not sharing this to detract from the larger conversation, but to add perhaps a bit of understanding. Maybe someone will read this and realize oh, that's what it's like, or maybe even somewhere a police officer might gain, even second or third hand, a tiny bit of understanding of what they're doing to the person, and their community at large, whenever they exercise their power like this.
In this scene, the character in question is a journalist, which is why, once she's in the back of the police car, her immediate thought is how to report the incident. This incident is fiction, but the details are all taken from real life and are the sort of thing that happens every single day in this country.
(I've cut out parts where it references the larger plot, as they're irrelevant to my purpose in sharing here. Michael is a homicide detective she'd been working with.)
( Read more... )
