Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has seen the brutal footage of a NBA rookie’s arrest, and he has been worried ever since.
According to reports, police spotted the car of Bucks rookie Sterling Brown around 2 a.m. on Jan. 26, parked across two handicapped-parking spaces. They began writing a ticket when the 6-foot-6-inch baller walked out of the store and began questioning the police. At some point, six police cars rolled up on the scene, a Taser was used and Brown was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest.
I have no idea how someone can be arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest. It sounds like a future crime. I would assume that everyone who is about to be arrested doesn’t want to be arrested. How can someone be suspected of resisting? Either you’re resisting or you aren’t. That seems pretty clear-cut. Like a bologna sandwich on the kitchen table, it’s either there or it isn’t.
I must admit, as a black man, I spend the better part of each day trying to resist being arrested. Just yesterday, while reading a story about Donald Trump, I had to resist the urge to call him a “stupid motherfucker,” which could be construed as slander. Thankfully, the look on my face didn’t arouse suspicion that I was apparently in violation of the law.
But as it relates to the Milwaukee Bucks guard, police are expected to release his arrest footage, and the Police Department, city officials and even the mayor are reportedly bracing themselves for the potential impact.
Two sources who have seen the video told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Brown was not combative or threatening when the officers questioned him, and yet he was still tased.
“I’m going to let the release of that speak for itself, but yes, I definitely have concerns after watching that video,” Barrett said at a news conference, the Journal Sentinel reports.
Police officials have been talking with community leaders, preparing them for the release of the footage. Which seems really strange, considering that one way to handle police violence might just be talking to the police about not being violent. If I had a habit of chopping people in the throat, no one would suggest to my victims that they needed to learn how to take shots to the windpipe.
Also, something seems really shady about police prepping community leaders on how to handle the community that they just tased for no reason (assuming, of course, that this is what the video shows).
I’m not saying that Milwaukee police are racist, but we shouldn’t forget that this is the place that elected Trump supporter David Clarke as its sheriff for 15 years. Not to mention that the police in Milwaukee have a penchant for fucking with black drivers.
According to a study from the American Civil Liberties Union, released in February, on Milwaukee police: “Even after controlling for nonracial factors—including crime rates—traffic stop rates and pedestrian stops rates in Milwaukee are more than six times higher for Black people than for white people.”
OK, maybe I am saying that Milwaukee cops are racist.
“This could be bad,” one source who watched the video told the Journal Sentinel. “The player doesn’t appear to be provocative at all.”
In the end, Brown wasn’t even charged with a crime, which is why Brown was acting so suspicious in the first place—because he wasn’t doing anything illegal! However, the incident prompted an internal investigation that will include the role the supervisors played in the police response.
During a Ceasefire Sabbath at a Milwaukee church, Assistant Police Chief Michael Brunson Sr. referred to the release of the video in Brown’s arrest and again asked for help from the over-policed community.
“There’s going to be a video that’s going to come out soon, in the next couple of weeks, involving the department, and I’m going to honest with you, we’re going to need your support during the challenges,” he said, according to a video posted on WITI-TV.
So now we wait until the footage is released. From the level of pandering by police toward the same community whose rights they continually violate, I can tell that this footage is going to be bad.
Like, really bad.
They’re making me suspicious.