Inspector Martin talked at length about bridging the gap between citizen and police force, and how much “progress” has been made in Hawthorne on this front. I put the word “progress” in quotations only because of something that happened directly after the meeting:
I went outside to shoot people leaving the building, just some b-roll in case we needed it later. There was a handful of youth (black males) hanging out doing whatever outside the front doors, basically keeping to themselves in the 15 minutes I was out there. Nearby, another handful of youth (black females) were doing the same thing. After shooting a little video of folks leaving, I ran inside and put the camera away for the night. Then I went back outside and was hanging out at the curb with Miss Pettiford and her friend, reassuring them that Gabe and I would give them a ride home (their ride either left or never showed up).
Then a police squad car pulled up. These two cops were young (late 20’s to early 30’s) white males. During the following interaction, I had to literally stop watching and remind myself that these two were actually police officers:
They walked directly up to the black males, aggressively asking “What up?” “What are you doing here?”
Okay, I thought, they’ve been called in because maybe these kids are disturbing the peace or something (which they certainly didn’t seem to be while I was out there).
They were paying a lot of attention to one young man (we’ll call him Mike), the hard-ass of the group (meaning, the one with the biggest mouth), and it started to spiral downward pretty quickly; the cops were clearly picking a fight. They wanted to get into it with these kids and were behaving like a couple of high school football players. For some reason I feel like I should point out that both the cops were “beefy” in build - like they regularly lift weights or are ex-military or something. Also, they were both very short - does this account for their overly aggressive (compensating) behavior? They looked like the assholes you avoid at bar-close, the kind of guys who are always getting into meaningless, something-to-prove fights with other ridiculously insecure males.
By this point I (and the group of black female youth) had wandered over and could hear everything being said. The cops never asked the kids to leave, or asked to see what was in Mike’s bag, etc. I distincly overheard one of them telling Mike that he was a “nobody,” and that “you don’t fucking matter, you’re nothing.”
The stark contrast between these two idiots and Inspector Martin was staggering. I also noticed how relaxed all of the youth were during this confrontation, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that happens on a nightly basis.
Again, never once did they actually instruct the kids to DO anything. There was no clear reason as to why they even showed up in the first place.
Of course, Mike, being disrespectful and young and brave and pissed off and out to prove something, never shut his mouth, and as the two cops were finally walking away - after many verbal threats and insults directed at Mike - he mumbled something under his breath.
Suddenly, one of these jerk-ass thick-necked jokers immediately turned around, ran at Mike, and JACKED HIM, TAKING HIM DOWN HARD. The other tough-guy-with-the-gun-and-billy-club-and-taser-that-he-always-had-his-hand-resting-on ran over and helped pin Mike down. They held him down and were hissing threats in his ear, assuring Mike that he’d live to regret it if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.
The cops never once asked these kids to leave, only threatened Mike over and over until they couldn’t control themselves.
They got up and Mike popped back onto his feet, his mouth running immediately (”You’re just pissed ’cause you didn’t find anything on me,” etc). The cops kept threatening to take him down again, to kick his ass, until finally they left, probably realizing that they had no real case against Mike or any of the other kids.
Left North in a really bad mood that night, despite the cool vibes at the annual meeting.
