As the resident commentator from Northern Westchester, I probably have a different relationship with law enforcement than most of my friends born and raised in the city. In my town, the police weren’t an entity to be feared or avoided. One of my best friends in high school’s father was a police officer and I frequently sat with him at their dinner table and thought nothing of it. The biggest impact cops made on my upbringing was the fact that they would frequently stop teenagers speeding down back roads when we were running late for school.
In all honesty, I’d never even had a one-on-one conversation with a working police officer until I was 19 and got pulled over for not coming to a full and complete stop before turning right at a red light. That experience was far from the violent, aggressive, or fear invoking one my friends in the city have experienced. The officer was nothing but friendly and respectful. Now, I think it would be naive to ignore the fact that being a young, female, and white most likely played a factor in how I was treated but nonetheless. The officer wrote my ticket and let me go on with my evening. That experience is a far cry from my young, male, black friend who was arrested and detained as a sophomore in high school by law enforcement in Brooklyn simply because he fit a suspect profile. My opinion of the police is largely different from my peers and is largely a product of where I grew up.