I watched the video and listened to the phone call. Awful. Just based on these boys’ appearances, behavior, and demeanor with the cops, it seems pretty darn unlikely that they were doing anything that would make someone so uncomfortable and suspicious! They look like a couple of high school kids! “Black clothes with weird symbols”??? Really? Looks like typical teen boy attire to me, maybe they play some video games or listen to heavy metal music and the shirts are related to that. Why on earth did the woman decide they were lying when they answered her? Probably because she had already decided there was something shady about them. I’m pretty sure if these were two white boys wearing khakis and polos (or whatever) she wouldn’t have thought a thing.
I agree that the cops went too far. I guess the dispatcher was just doing her job based on what she heard by sending them to check it out, although I was waiting to hear her ask, “So what exactly did these boys DO, ma’am?” But being taken off the tour and patted down? I agree with the poster above who said they just should have addressed the group and made sure everyone was registered for the tour.
I joined a tour late because I ran to the restroom and they left without me! I didn’t say a word to anyone. I might have been wearing (gasp) a black shirt. But I’m a white woman. So nobody noticed or cared.
I was in an unfamiliar city staying in an area that many told me was unsafe. I was walking down the street and I secured my purse and walked to the other side of the street when I had some unruly looking characters coming at me. They were white!
The next day the same thing happened only the group was black. When I walked to the other side of the street securing my purse I was taunted and called a “racist B****”. So what was I the night before?
I will always choose my own safety over the worry of being called racist. If that offends someone I’m sorry. In my life I treat everyone with respect no matter their race, sexual orientation, gender identity and even political ideology.
It bothers me when I read comments like, “I don’t know if she is racist…”. Really? And this is part of the problem. This lady is probably sitting at home, reading the news and/or online responses thinking, “I’m not racist, I just…”. But would this had happened if it were two white boys wearing black tshirts? Would the police pull out two white boys and frisked them? The answer if we were to take the blinders off is NO. The lady is racist, the behavior of the police was also racist. Period.
What does this have to do with the subject at hand? This was a college tour, not a solitary walk in a sketchy neighborhood. The woman was in no danger whatsoever. In your example, you were afraid of “unruly” white people as well as black people. Does anyone reading the account of this incident believe that the woman would have been afraid of two white boys arriving late to a college tour and wearing black shirts? I for one do not.
@bhs1978, the difference is, after making your evaluations of those two situations, you quietly took responsibility for your own fears by taking yourself across the street. You didn’t call the police to have the “unruly looking characters” searched and diverted from their own business.
This woman could have left the tour if she felt overwhelmed by fear, but she chose to have innocent people removed from it, searched, patted down and humiliated. A whale of a difference ,
I’ve seen multitudes of students on any college campus who looked deliberately odder than these guys.
There’s a little something in our constitution about unreasonable searches,
I was called a racist for an act. Nobody knew my back story. Nobody Knew what happened to me the night before. Nobody knew what in that instance would cause me to feel unsafe.
I do not know the answers to these questions regarding the incidence at hand. Therefore I choose not to pass judgement. Is she a racist? Possibly. I don’t know her back story that caused her to feel unsafe. I wasn’t present at the tour so I can’t make a judgement about feeling unsafe. Sorry if my refusal to sit in cyber judgement of someone I don’t know is offensive to some.
I want to know what kind of college tours people are going on where everybody is talking? The two tours I took with D, the tour guide did almost all the talking with just a few people occasionally asking questions. If the cops were to be called on people who didn’t say anything for the whole tour, then half of both my tour groups would’ve gotten patted down (including me and D).
@bhs1978 See, my feeling if that happened to me – although it wouldn’t because I don’t live in fear anywhere I go (and we can argue all day about how sane you think that is)-- would be that I would feel SORRY that I felt that second group feel less-than, that I subjected them yet again to the daily onslaught of microagression they are subjected to (I know because my daughter has a number of POC friends at her high school in a very white (or Muslim) European city; every time they sit in the tube people unconsciouly tighten their hold on their purses or get up and move away). No, the white group did not feel offended because the white group does not experience oppression every day of their lives. If the second group called me racist beyotch then I would be sorry both because my actions caused them to feel less-than but also that they feel so disempowered that they feel the need to resort to insults. Would I feel personally offended? Never. It can only hurt if it stings.
Agreed @anomander. Not only was it rude of her to expect answers from strangers to her nosey questions, why was she engaging in conversation at all? She said on the recorded call to report them that the group was about 15 people. Too small to chit-chat without it being rude. Perhaps the boys were on the quiet side because they wanted to be respectful of the tour guide and not interrupt and distract.
“This woman could have left the tour if she felt overwhelmed by fear, but she chose to have innocent people removed from it, searched, patted down and humiliated. A whale of a difference”
Funny, if she and her husband were so concerned, why did the husband and her son stick to the tour if they felt they were at such risk?!
^The fact that she “felt” unsafe or that she may have had a backstory is still no reason to have innocent people searched. Anyone can “feel” unsafe…that does not give licence to take unreasonable action on that feeling in a way that infringes on another’s rights.
It may have stung that you were called a racist, but that’s small potatoes compared to the humiliation of someone being removed, questioned, patted down, simply for one’s color and quiet demeanor. If I were called racist by crossing the street (as you did, and I might do in a similar situation) I’d say that was a small price to pay for the ease of living life as a Caucasian in the United States.
She didn’t know apriori that they were innocent. I find it amazing that she and the husband could come to the conclusion so quickly that there was a danger significant enough to warrant calling the police, but it does raise the question of what is a reasonable or an unreasonable action to take. The answer to that can’t be “if you were wrong, then it was an unreasonable action”.
@bhs1978 I had a racist grandmother. She was 1/2 black and 1/2 Oklahoma Choktaw. And she hated white people. Why? Because her mother was raped by a klansmen. I have the court transcript from when the case was brought before a judge. I remember my dad and mom telling her that she was wrong. It was not resolved and my parents no longer brought us to visit with her, She was wrong, she would not change, and her hate was toxic. I tell you this story to encourage you to RISE from your fears. However you think they are justified, they are toxic, especially when those fears direct your behavior and/or thoughts towards an entire people simply based on the color of their skin. RISE.
^ None of us know apriori if any of us are innocent or not. Serial murderers are sometimes known to be quite charming and mass murderers can have any race or outward personality. But our civilization does require some degree of risk and trust in order to function at all. And our country is supposed to the grounded in the basic idea that one is innocent until proven guilty. Should we now have a law that no one may place hands in pockets in public? That anyone remaining silent while interrogated by anyone else is is suspect? Maybe it’s come that that…just apply the law equally to all races…
Perhaps most people of current parent-of-high-school-student age still perceive the risk of crime to be like when they were growing up during the crime wave era, even though actual crime levels are much lower than they were then.
When I saw this news, the first thing I thought about was the Caren Turner incident and how she tried to use her power to bully the police. In this case, the mom uses the “see something, say something” to manipulate the police into doing her bidding, when the only things those kids did wrong was being themselves!
Together with a recent work incident, it makes me think even though at work place, we are for the most part politically correct, but by the time of promotions, those unconscious bias determines the quiet ones or the odd ones (or the ones who don’t fit into a supposed mold) never had any opportunities. While we all lament on this incident because we see it, there are so many cases of this that goes unnoticed or unreported in workplace and all over our society.
I would imagine this had more to do with terrorism/school shooting fears that concerns about run of the mill crime. The woman said “With everything that’s happened…”
I agree that she was totally out of line. It sounds like the boys did absolutely nothing wrong. I wonder if she comes from a “chatty” culture and was thrown off by the boys’ more quiet way. When asked by the police why one of the boys didn’t give his name to the woman his friend answered, “He’s shy.”
I do think that once they had been reported the campus police had to treat them as possibly dangerous. The police usually only receive a shorthand report of the reason for concern. In this case it was probably something like “two young males acting strangely.” There are many cases where, looking back, we would love for the police to have intervened before some kid shot up a school.
This case highlights one of the reason I’ve wanted my kids to go to schools where they could interact with people from backgrounds unlike theirs.
On a prep school visit I was surprised to see a touring family where the kid was dresses in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. The other boys were all wearing some variation on khakis and oxfords. When I took another look at the kid and who he was touring with it became clear he was an athletic recruit for whom the whole prep school thing was new. I have no doubt he would have dressed more formally if he knew that was an unspoken expectation. I had to shelve my own privileged cultural expectations.
In the Colorado State case it seems the busybody mother had cultural expectations for touring kids. On time, with a parent, dressed as she would dress her sons, chatty, with bright affect, forthcoming with information. How sad that she interpreted quiet boys in clean band t-shirts as scary.
And yes, I do think the color of their skin came into play as well.
It’s dumb to be afraid of two quiet kids wearing black T-shirts because you think they might be school shooters. It’s exceptionally dumb, and also racist, to be afraid of two quiet brown kids because you think they might be school shooters. If you’re going to racially profile, at least get the profile right. Don’t racially profile brown kids when the profile for school shooters is white.