45 Words

When I was in high school in Iowa, getting one's driver's license was a rite of passage. The minimum age to get a learner's permit was 14, and one could get a license to drive at 16 if he had a learner's permit and passed the state highway patrol driving exam. It was common practice for a learner to visit the DMV on his 16th birthday, or the next business day afterward, to take the test. Younger learners eagerly looked forward to this momentous day!

As a 15-year-old, I became impatient for my father, a professional traveling building materials salesman, to take time to teach me to drive. One day, while driving me home from school on one of Iowa's gravel country roads, he pulled over onto the shoulder, turned off the engine of his new fawn colored Plymouth Belvedere two-door hardtop, put the keys on the dash, gripped the steering wheel between the 10:00 and 2:00 molded plastic handgrips, and announced solemnly, "This is your first driving lesson; don't get out of the car!"

I was puzzled for only a moment, wondering how I was going to drive from the right side of the front bench seat, when he continued, "Notice what I just did! I pulled over where it's wide enough that I'm not blocking any traffic. I put the car in PARK and turned off the ignition. My driver's license and proof of insurance are in my wallet in my pants pocket and my registration certificate is attached to the steering column. My hands are on the steering wheel, and the keys are on the dash where they can be easily seen by anyone looking in my window or the windshield."

"Now," he continued, "If you are ever pulled over by a law enforcement officer, do exactly what I did and wait for him to approach you. It may be a minute or two, because he may be checking the license plate to find out who owns the car. Be courteous and respectful! If he tells you to do something, do that! Don't argue or make any sudden movements! If you think he is violating your civil rights, tell the judge, not him!"

That was good advice. It is kept me out of "a heap o' trouble!" That included what may have resulted otherwise when I was stopped by police several times thereafter. Unfortunately, I happened to look very much like a famous local teenager whose picture was in all the papers because he had recently been convicted of murdering his parents. I was never afraid of getting killed by mistake by a police officer while resisting arrest. On the other hand, I didn't resist arrest, either. I didn't do anything to help Benjamin Crump make my father obscenely rich by suing the police for doing that, one of the most lucrative opportunities of bad parenting. I like to think my father valued my life more than being rich!

Daunte Demetrius Wright wasn't so fortunate. On April 11, 2021, police officers observed him signaling a right turn in his brother's car, that happened to have an expired registration tag, from the left-turning lane. Having stopped him for reasonable cause, officers ran his name through a police database and learned that he had an open arrest warrant for failure to appear in court on previous charges of possessing a firearm without a permit and fleeing from Minneapolis police. Based on that information, police attempted to arrest him as he got out of the car. That's when things got ugly!

Mr. Wright resisted arrest and got back into the car. One of the officers, veteran field training officer Kimberly Potter, warned him, "I'll tase you!" and then yelled, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" She mistakenly fired one shot with her service weapon instead of her taser, and cried, "Oh shit, I just shot him!" Mortally wounded, Mr. Wright drove less than a tenth of a mile and collided with another vehicle. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Officer Potter was arrested, booked into jail, tried for first- and second-degree manslaughter, and was convicted on both counts on December 23, 2021. She served 16 months of her two-year sentence with time off for good behavior, in accordance with Minnesota law, and was released under supervision for the remaining third of her sentence.

The City of Brooklyn Center settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay $3.25 million to Wright's family, most of it to his toddler son. As part of the settlement, the city is required to erect a permanent memorial to Mr. Wright. Alayna Albrecht-Payton, a passenger in Wright's vehicle during the incident, settled a civil lawsuit against the city for $350,000.

I was reminded of all this the other day when I came across an article by Nell Greenfieldboyce on the National Public Radio website that claimed that for black drivers, a police officer's first 45 words are a portent of what's to come." Ms. Greenfieldboyce's article referenced a study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that found that black men were highly attuned to the implications of a police officer starting an interaction with a command. When officers began with orders without reasons, the participants predicted that the stop would escalate in over 84% of those cases. The article asserted that for studies of actual stops of black drivers, "The words or actions of the person behind the wheel of the car didn't seem to contribute to escalation."

I think that what this says is that my father's advice would have been wrong if I had been black. I have to wonder if that is really true.

As an example, the study noted that in the murder of George Floyd, in the first 27 seconds of Floyd's encounter with police on that day, it found that Floyd apologized to the officers who stood outside his car window, he requested the reason for the stop, he pleaded, he explained, he expressed fear, and yet every response to Floyd was an order! The study maintained that Mr. Floyd followed orders, but from what I personally saw on the televised videos, he didn't do it nearly fast enough, and he appeared unwilling, or unable, to follow any others, preferring to apologize, question, plead, explain and cower instead of doing what he was told, and immediately getting out of the damn car!

Frankly, I'm puzzled about why Mr. Floyd didn't learn instantly to follow orders from clearly identifiable authority figures during his four years in prison instead of apologizing, questioning, pleading, explaining and cowering. If he had the advantage of the education from the Army sergeants (or my dad!) who trained me, he would have been out of that car and standing at attention before the officer finished giving the command!

From the very beginning, police officers appeared to have issued commands without giving Floyd an explanation--just like my sergeants (and dad!) did, using the same linguistic signature associated with escalation in the study. I don't recall my father telling me that an explanation was required to make an officer's order any more lawful (although I seem to recall our drill sergeant explaining that in very convincing language to one of my fellow trainees who seemed to think otherwise). According to the study, car stops that result in a search, handcuffing, or arrest are nearly three times more likely to begin with the police officer issuing a command, such as "Keep your hands on the wheel" or "Turn the car off." They wouldn't have had to tell me that, because my hands would have already been on the wheel and the car would already have been turned off.

I wonder what would have happened, in my admittedly few encounters with law enforcement, if I had replied to an order to do something other than immediately complying with it, as did George Floyd or Daunte Wright!

I think what this study says is that, if you are black (the study didn't include white folks), the first words a law enforcement officer says to you in a confrontation should be a warning. The warning should be the same as that of my father: "Be courteous and respectful! If he tells you to do something, do that! Don't argue or make any sudden movements! If you think he is violating your civil rights, tell the judge, not him!" It doesn't seem to me that following that advice can possibly be more dangerous than not following it, regardless of what color one is!

The study noted that over 15% of black drivers (the study didn't seem to include black passengers) experienced an escalated outcome such as a search, handcuffing, or arrest, while less than 1% of white drivers experienced one of those outcomes. I have to wonder why. Do black drivers respond differently than white drivers? My personal belief is that, if the first 45 words spoken by a law enforcement officer to anybody during a car stop suggest an outcome such as a search, handcuffing, or arrest, any detainee, black or white, should recognize the possibility that the outcome may include the officer getting prison time, the detainee's family getting rich, and the detainee ending up dead! I don't see that as the most desirable outcome, but, on the other hand, I'm not black!

Unfortunately, regardless of what color you are, what the officer did, or how you respond, if anyone gets killed, it's usually the person not following orders, and he or she doesn't get a do-over!

Feel free to send me a comment.

John Lindorfer