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‘Driving while black in Fayetteville, Ga.’Wed, 12/26/2007 - 1:06pm
By: The Citizen
Friday night, my two sons were driving past the Ingles on Ga. Highway 92 when my oldest son noticed the car of a friend who had recently graduated from Whitewater High School with him. So, he decided to stop and get reacquainted. As the boys approached the friend’s car, they saw flashing blue lights, and the friend flagged the boys down. My older son asked the officer’s permission to speak with his friend, since they had both been away attending college over the past few months. The officer informed my sons that school buses parked in the Ingles lot had recently been vandalized. My eldest son responded that Friday was his first day home from college and he had just picked up his younger brother from the Whitewater basketball game. Two additional police cars arrived on the scene with blue flashing lights. Unexpectedly, suspicion turned toward my sons, as they began to be interrogated as hardened criminals. The officers repeatedly asked my sons if they had any weapons, bombs, or child pornography in their possession. One of the officers asked to search my son’s car and to check the boys’ identification. My eldest son informed the officers that when he was away at college, my husband drove his car while our minivan was being repaired. Another officer ordered the young men to sit on the ground; not on the pavement, but in the dirt and gravel. The boys were commanded to sit in the dirt while the police literally trashed my son’s car. The officers upturned my 14-year-old son’s backpack and dumped all of his books and school supplies out; they haphazardly strewed the young men’s personal effects everywhere and shined their flash lights in every crook and cranny of the car, twice. One of the officers informed my oldest that since he had been away in college, it was now illegal to sag his pants in public. After the intense search, the officers informed my sons that they found small traces of marijuana in the car; but it was not enough to arrest them, so they were going to let the boys go. My son asked the officers to physically see the evidence, but the police merely said they were going to cut them a break and let them go, but to tell their dad to stop smoking pot in the car. My sons were just stunned by their unwarranted, insensitive and inhumane treatment; especially, my 14-year-old. My heart aches over my sons’ ordeal, but I know this is just the beginning of their indoctrination into manhood in Fayette County, Ga. My eldest son just completed his first college semester and is a good candidate for the Dean’s List. The younger son is a 4.0 student at Whitewater and has NEVER been in trouble. So far, this is my 18-year-old’s fifth encounter with the police in Fayette County. So, if you ever see a car with “Chevy Boy” across the back window, please reassure my son that everyone does not think that he is a criminal; he’s just “Driving while BLACK in Fayetteville, Ga.” Wendy L. Scales-Johnson Fayetteville, Ga. login to post comments
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