If you’re a black kid, and you’re inside a house where white people live, you must be a burglar — right?
That’s what a neighbor assumed when DeShawn Currie, 18, a black foster child being parented by a white couple, came home from school and walked in the door. So they called police. And that’s what the police assumed when they swarmed the house and pepper-sprayed DeShawn in the face. “They was like, ‘Put your hands on the door,'” said DeShawn. “I was like, ‘For what? This is my house.’ I was like, ‘Why are y’all in here?'” They say it is best to get monitored alarm systems on your home to keep out intruders, but what if the intruder is an authority? Clearly, they were not welcome in this house and surely did not have a warrant so quickly. Unfortunately, it proves that the enemies we want to keep out, aren’t always disguised as the bad guys.
Ever since Ferguson, Missouri, cops shot a teenager for being black, America’s latent racism has been bubbling to the surface all over the country. It seems we haven’t made such great strides in race relations after all, despite the achievements of the civil rights movement. An awful lot of citizens and cops in this country simply assume that if you’re black, you’re up to no good. You’re born into a penalty box. Many members of minority groups are wrongly accused and treated differently by the authorities – automatically being labelled as criminals. There are lawyers who can defend those who are wrongly accused, such as this Fort Worth Criminal Lawyer, but it shouldn’t be needed in the first place.
I’m not sure government intervention can do very much to prevent this type of incident, other than hiring cops with brains bigger than a gnat’s, because you can’t really legislate against stupidity. But lawyers — historically fighters for the powerless — sure can. I don’t think I’d sue the neighbor here. If I saw someone I didn’t recognize entering a neighbor’s house, I’d call 911 to have the professionals check it out. Cops are a different story. Finding out who this person is, and why he’s in the house, is their job. If they screw that up, as they did here, they should pay like anyone else who negligently harms on someone. I figure $500,000 will set this straight, taking into account not only the assault and battery but also the psychological injury to DeShawn (which even a lot of counseling won’t ever completely repair), and to his foster parents, and their other children.
I’d prefer to take it from their salaries, but you and I both know the taxpayers will get stuck with the bill for this, as always. And nothing will happen to the cops. They’ll stay on the job, and probably won’t even get Special High Intensity Training (“S.H.I.T.”) from their supervisor. As for DeShawn, he’s lucky he wasn’t shot.
