The Rochester Police Incident is Terrible - But We Shouldn’t Be Surprised.
American policing is seen by many only through released body camera footage. It’s a desensitized way for white Americans to witness the trauma and suffering inflicted by police and to create tidy excuses for the actions of these abusers masquerading as the shepherds of “public safety”. The Rochester Police Department’s footage of a squadron of white police officers manhandling and then using a chemical weapon, banned in war, on a nine-year-old is no different. Policing relies on dehumanizing those most affected by its presence, especially BIPOC, and desensitizing everyone else to its violence. Race is at the heart of this dynamic.
I was in an HR presentation where they had us “picture a criminal”. The crime in question was stealing. They asked us “what do they look like? Are they male, female? What are they wearing?” Then they had us share our images. Almost every white person answered a Black man with baggy clothes. They had never asked us the race of the criminal.
As we evaluate the Rochester police pepper-spraying a nine-year-old Black girl incident, we see the case of aging-up. Black girls are perceived as growing up faster than white girls and are treated as adults from a younger age. This ideation dehumanizes Black girls and subjects them to harsher treatment from schools and by law enforcement. While this particular incident may seem “shocking”, for many Black women, it’s not. Monica Raye Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, was pepper-sprayed at 11. In May 2020, Rochester Police aggressively handcuffed a ten-year-old girl. Orlando police arrested a six-year-old Black girl for having a temper tantrum in class. St. Paul police aggressively restrained a 13-year-old girl, having her lying facedown on the UPS floor. Seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was fatally shot by Detroit police during a raid. Violence against young Black girls is nothing new, and while it gets less media attention, is rooted in the same systemic racism that affects BIPOC everyday.
Black Americans aren’t the only ones subject to criminal racism. The Latinx community struggles to shake the stereotype of “drug smugglers” and “coyotes”, which have sadly been reinforced by both television and movies, as well as politicians. In 2013, Andy Lopez, a 13-year-old, was shot 7 times by Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus. The officer believed Lopez’s toy gun was an AK-47. In 2014, Alex Nieto 28, was eating a burrito in San Francisco when someone thought he was suspicious and called 911. One officer unloaded his entire clip, then reloaded, shooting 23 rounds tota. Another officer shot 20 times. Two additional officers shot Nieto at least five times. In 2020, Sean Monterrosa, 22, was shot by a detective 5 times. He was suspected to have a gun, when in reality, he was holding a hammer. In many of these cases, the officers involved were not charged. Because “looking Latinx” is often “suspicious enough” for many people, unnecessary deaths await. Once again, race determines criminal status, even if no crime has been committed.
While this is not, by any means, a comprehensive overview of the race and crime intersection, I believe the point is pretty clear: we turn to race as a way to corroborate our already enforced stereotypes about crime. It’s easy to be a racist when you think the justice system is on your side. And for the most part, it is.