Seen Through Black Eyes

The year was 1992, and I was living in Oakland, CA. I was married at the time, and we were a single car household. My then wife worked a normal 9 to 5, while I worked 3rd shift or the overnight shift. So, the morning routine was that I would come home from work around 5 am and do a few things around the house before going to sleep. If there was no need for me to leave the house on a particular day, she would take the car.

On this day in question, I needed to run some errands so I decided I would drive her to work and pick her up at the end of the day. Since I would normally get home about 0500 and she did not have to leave the house until 0830 I took a nap.

When it was time for her to leave on this cool and drizzly morning, I had her drive my burgundy Peugeot 505 S 5 speed to work with me in the passenger seat. (This is the same car I drove her in on our first or second date when I barely knew how to drive a manual. On that date I made the mistake of turning east onto California Street with its 25% incline. As I turned onto California Street, I damn near stared up into the sky as I looked up that hill with the most terrified look I ever had. Sheer fear peered back at me in the rearview mirror as I slowly crawled up California Street as the Peugeot resisted any forward motion I attempted.)

Anyway, once we got to her job - she got out of the driver’s side and walked quickly into the office building. We did not kiss (maybe that is why we divorced) no…she was late. At the same time, I got out of the passenger side, went around the car and hopped into the driver’s seat, fastened my seat belt and I drove off.

I must have driven about 100 feet before I reached a stop light. At this point a white male approached my car and knocked on the driver’s side window. I rolled down the window and asked if I could help him. He said, “there are people yelling saying that you are stealing this car.” I tell him that this is my car besides, would I stop and have a conversation with you if I was stealing this car? He said, “I’m just telling you what they are saying. I said, “this is my car and I roll the window back up.” Once the light turned green, I drove off.

I made a pit stop at a store…once done I got back into the car and I drove off. This is where it gets crazy. Once I get to the next stop light, between five and six police cars surround me with eight to ten cops pointing their firearms at me. Now…it is difficult for me to recall how many cars and how many police officers there were because…

DID I SAY THEY WERE POINTING THEIR GUNS AT ME!!!!

They were yelling at me to shut the engine off, put both hands on the steering wheel, and with one hand roll down my window and throw out my keys. I am yelling back that I have power windows and I can not roll down the windows without turning the ignition on. I can hear them, but they cannot hear me.

Needless to say, I do not want to remove my hands from the steering wheel in fear that they would see that as an aggressive move and start shooting, then ask questions. Finally one cop says open the driver’s side door and throw out your keys, I comply immediately. With the door open and my keys on the floor they bum rush me, attempting to drag me out the car not paying attention to the fact that I still have my seatbelt on. One of the officers must think I am resisting so…he really gets aggressive in pulling on me.

Several of them are yelling at me to get out of the car, so they cannot hear me yelling that the seat belt is still on. Finally, another officer unfastens my seat belt and we go flying out the car. (Somehow that was my fault).

Now I am face down in the middle of the rain-soaked streets of downtown Oakland in full sight of curious onlookers. A knee is not on my neck but in my back as the aggressive officer applied his cuffs a skosh too tight behind my back. Now two officers pick me up not by hoisting me from my armpits, but by picking me up from the top of my sweat suit hoodie…the top side of my shoulders. While Mr. Aggressive rifles through my pockets to get my wallet, another officer searches my car and finds my registration.

Up to this point this event is scary, annoying, and embarrassing. However now it begins to get absurd in my opinion. The officers notice that the name and address on my driver’s license and vehicle registration are an exact match. (Let me stop here to say…at that point in my life I moved so often that an exact match of the address on my driver’s license and my vehicle registration was a rare event…but it was the case for this event.

I thought at that point I would be uncuffed and apologized to but that was not the case. Once the “exact match” was discovered, I could hear Mr. Aggressive tell another officer, “get my cuffs” and he hopped into his cruiser and drove off.

Another officer approaches me and asks why would someone say you were stealing this car? I said, “neither do I know, nor do I care. You can clearly see that the car is registered to me. Can you uncuff me now?” He said that he needed to clear up a few things first. While pissed, I explained the whole story. He then asked if my wife could corroborate the story. I said yes but I do not understand why she would need to. The car is registered to the person on the driver’s license and the driver’s license is clearly mine. He says, “maybe you guys got into an argument,” I interrupted him and said, “and I stole my own car?”

The conversation went on for about 20 minutes while they called my then wife’s mobile number…there was no answer. Then I gave them her office number (what if I could not remember her office number). She worked for the city of Oakland and she was meeting with her boss and some city government contractors. So, someone had to interrupt the meeting and pull her out of this meeting to deal with this situation. She confirmed with the police that the car was mine and that I was not stealing it.

After getting confirmation they uncuffed me and said that I was free to go. Notice I did not say they apologized. In consultation with my then wife’s boss and we agreed and reached out to Civil Rights Lawyer and OPD antagonist John L. Burris to see if anything could be done. He basically said that I should feel lucky because in that situation the police could have held me for eight hours while sorting things out.

Suffice it to say that response did not sit well with me, but I felt I had little recourse and I moved on. However, every time I hear of a shot while black incident I think of, “The year was 1992 and I was living in Oakland, CA…”

END.