by Darius Kazemi, Apr 16 2019
On April 16th, 2019 at around 7am I went to work at my local coffee shop in Portland, Oregon like I do many mornings.
A black guy and his white friend were in the cafe sitting quietly having coffee. they are pretty clearly poor folks, maybe houseless, the white guy was behaving erratically but harmlessly. he would go out and run down the street and then run back. and like. it's distressing but he's not harming anyone.
two police officers show up while he's out running in the street (yeah, in the middle of the street; there wasn't much traffic at 7am) and yell at him to get down on the ground, and he does. they immediately cuff him, roll him around on the ground, empty his pockets (nothing was in them), put him in the back of the police car.
while all this is happening his black friend goes out and asks what's going on and the cops IMMEDIATELY start to yell at the black guy. "get back, get back!" Like pointing and yelling at him at the very top of their lungs! all he asked was "Officer, what are you detaining him for?" and it looks like things are going to escalate really really badly. so I stepped outside and stood right next to the black man and asked the same questions of one of the cops
meanwhile the cops have blocked traffic way worse than this guy ever did by running
the cop backs off because I'm clearly like, a more wealthy non-black "safe" person, and I stand with the black guy the whole time. then the black guy gets upset and and starts raising his voice at the cops, "what are you detaining him for?" and they get into this argument, the cops saying they are getting the guy for disorderly conduct. it's a heated conversation and there is anger but it's civil. the guy wants to know what the hell is happening to his friend. two other cops show up for a total of 4.
meanwhile I'm fucking mad and I start telling the other cop that they are ruining this neighborhood and making me feel unsafe, and that a normal human being would just ask the dude to stop running in the street and maybe get him some help. I said "what you're doing is ridiculous" and the cop is like "well that's your opinion." and I was like, "Yes, that is my opinion, I'm seeing what's happening here and in my opinion you are being ridiculous."
and he was like "Have a good day, sir." and then I started raising my voice, "I will NOT have a good day, I just saw you cuff and arrest a guy for running in the street, you've ruined my day, this is awful."
anyway I stood with the black guy until the cops left (with his friend still cuffed in the car)
and then sat down with the black guy and debriefed a little. he was like "he shouldn't have been running in the street and I probably didn't help back there" and I was like "yeah and they should have just asked him to stop running instead of immediately arresting him"
This whole time nobody else helped or did anything; the cafe has a BLACK LIVES MATTER sign in the window but none of the white staff came out to make sure their black customer wasn't going to be killed by police... maybe it was because I was already out there and they know me at the shop (literally yesterday I escorted a man who was harassing customers out of the shop, one of the thing I am obligated to do as a 300 lb 6'2" cis man). Anyway it was weird and bad and I'm shaken.