Editorial: Antwon Rose's killing in East Pittsburgh resonates with Detroit writer
It’s happened to me, too.
Not that famous hashtag that’s been dominating headlines, but one quite similar to the others you’ve seen floating around Twitter about young black men such as Antwon Rose. They just get less attention outside of the black community and sympathetic nonminority groups.
It was a warm, sunny weekend day in my predominately white subdivision in a Detroit suburb years ago. And I was doing what a normal, responsible person was doing: cutting his lawn. That’s when the unthinkable happened.
A police car stopped at the home we were renting at the time. Much like the 12-year-old boy in a Cleveland suburb recently, I was asked what I was doing at the home. I calmly explained that I lived there, but inside my heart pounded fast. I was scared.
More than anything else, I was also appalled.
It was the notion that a black man didn’t belong. I worked as a newspaper reporter in Detroit City Hall and helped uncover a high amount of taxpayer money paid out in police brutality lawsuits at the time. Some of my reporting helped lead to a consent decree regarding police use of force.
Yet — at that moment — none of that mattered. And because it wasn’t the first incident, I knew how to handle it without getting upset.
I was pulled over within the first week I moved to Bloomfield Hills, which is 89 percent white. The officer ran my plate and asked what I was doing in the area at midnight. My response: going home. I was around the corner. I hadn’t had time to switch my license since my recent marriage.
In our six years there, we were pulled over so many times that eventually the officers would then recognize us, apologize and say: “We didn’t know it was you, Mr. Nichols or Mrs. Nichols, have a nice day.”
But by then I was in my 30s.
See, Rose was 17. Yet I’m sure we shared the same panic and the adrenaline rush when you see those red and blue lights flashing behind you. It never subsides.
I, in some ways, understand Rose’s fear, because I’ve been there.
At 17, I lived during the height of drug and gang wars in Detroit in the 1980s. The streets were so tough that filmmakers used it as the catalyst for the classic movie “New Jack City.” A set of drug kingpins called the Chambers Brothers really did take over an apartment building to set up shop on the city’s east side. That notion wasn’t made up in Hollywood.
Still, I was middle-class, a child of two educators. I was too immersed in sports to choose the wrong path.
As a freshman in my first college semester, I was on the city’s northwest side when I was pulled over. I stopped and an officer flashed a gun in my face as I put my hands on the wheel.
I damn near cried. I prayed nothing was planted in my car as they asked me to step out, put my hands on the hood and they ransacked the car looking for drugs.
Unlike Rose, I didn’t run. I drove away unharmed.
All I wanted was fast food late at night after leaving my first college party. But one wrong move and I could have been a hashtag before it was a social media phenomenon.
The point of this is not to simply share my bad experiences with the police or to imply all are bad. I know too many good, responsible officers. They take the oath to protect and serve seriously. I have a former high school teammate and another close friend who were shot as Detroit Police officers.
It’s also not to inject race as my scenarios involved officers who were black and white. We’ve got too much of that going on now.
Still, this is meant to point out too many people of color have similar stories. And each span socio-economic backgrounds, although too many undeserved people are oppressed more.
If it’s Trayvon Martin, we relate. If it’s Rose or Philando Castile, it reminds folks of traffic stops where the outcome could have led to their death. If it’s Renisha McBride, it’s a reminder of the time when we were stranded in the snow or rain and simply needed help. Instead, she was shot for knocking on the wrong door.
But with cellphones all equipped with cameras and social media posts, it gets overwhelming. Cable television news shows, which discuss these issues on a 24/7 cycle, don’t help either.
In recent weeks, we’ve been inundated with law enforcement being called for minor infractions such as having to prove you live in a community to swim, putting up a lemonade stand; barbecuing in a public park, selling bottled water by an 8-year-old and a youth football team, or getting thrown out of a high school graduation.
What’s next — selling Girl Scout cookies?
Whether it’s the Rose incident or the next one that will dominate the news cycle, many are just fed up. There are too many reminders of loved one’s and friends accosted, wrongfully jailed or killed.
That’s a part of the frustration displayed in Chicago on July 7 when thousands of protesters shut down a freeway over the gun violence that’s plaguing the poorest neighborhoods in the city.
It never goes away.
It all just makes me wanna holla and throw up my hands.
Darren A. Nichols is a Detroit-based freelance writer. He spent more than 20 years as a reporter at The Detroit News, primarily covering Detroit City Hall.
