“They didn’t see me as innocent”
Can you remember your first experience with the police? Kiana Moore asks 9 Black and brown people to share the encounters that would shape their sense of safety forever.
Image via Vox
It was a warm Sunday afternoon in late May when a friend mentioned he was organizing a Black Lives Matter march near my home in San Francisco. Like many, I hadn’t left the house in weeks; the city was in lockdown, and Covid-19 was well underway. But despite my fears of getting sick, something told me I needed to go — that I needed to show up for my community. So I decided to go alone.
We walked on Market Street, circling the Embarcadero twice in a peaceful protest of the deaths of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and so many more of my fallen brothers and sisters. We had been marching for two hours and were just about to start a third loop, when suddenly, an unmarked white van approached us, blocking our path. A slew of other unmarked vehicles followed. Several heavily armed police officers flooded the sidewalk, forming a line around the building we had just passed.
Immediately, as if by instinct, all the people of color stepped into the street, away from the police, just as two white protesters stepped forward. They got into the officers’ faces, screaming and yelling, calling them pigs. One of them moved even closer, till it looked like it might escalate into something physical. A short Black woman with dreads and a loudspeaker screamed for them to step back. “This isn’t helping!” she yelled.
But they didn’t stop.
In fact, one of them continued walking up and down the line, eyeing the officers. Unafraid and untouched.
Their audacity shocked me. I was struck by the deep divide between how those with less melanin reacted to the police, compared to those with more — and how young I and so many others were when we were forced to learn to be cautious with those sworn to protect us.
I thought about my first interaction with law enforcement, when I was just 10 years old. I thought about how traumatic it was, and how that experience shaped me into the person I am today: someone who knows that law enforcement isn’t always right, and who speaks up when she sees injustice. And I thought about how different it must have been from the experiences of those two protesters, who felt they could yell at a line of officers without deadly consequences.
I also thought that if people, allies or not, could hear our stories, maybe they would finally listen and would understand why we are marching for change. Why we need change. Since our march, with the killings of Rayshard Brooks, David McAtee, and so many others at the hands of police and the National Guard, our calls have only felt more urgent.
After that day, I started talking to people. I posted a callout on social media asking them to share their first, most impactful experience with the police — good or bad. The post spread. I began to get countless messages and texts from people I knew, and many I did not. Most of their stories were unpleasant and abusive. Of the dozens of people I spoke with, almost everyone struggled to come up with a positive experience. I opened up my old scars, and those of the people brave enough to share their stories with me — stories of hurt, disdain, aggression, privilege, corruption, occasional kindness, and very little understanding.
These are just a few of these stories, told over several conversations and edited for length and clarity. Each is unique, and a different lens on the complex relationship between citizen and officer.
Read the full story by Kiana Moore on Vox right here.