I live in a solidly middle class neighborhood bordered by a lower middle class one to the west, very upper class one to the south, and lower class one to the north.I once intervened with a cop who was harassing black teens outside my building ("Officer, is this really necessary? These kids don't seem to be doing anything wrong to me," and stood there until he let them be on their way), but I'm honestly not sure what would be the best course of action after the fact, without the officers' names or badge numbers.
Today I was looking out my window and saw 3 cops harassing 4 brown teens on bikes for no ostensible reason. Kids weren't disturbing the peace or anything like that, and I highly doubt any of my neighbors called the cops on them.
It was my first ever witnessing of a "xing while brown/black" and I'm frankly disturbed. They're just kids! What the hell?!?! Yes, I realize I'm very privileged to have never seen, let alone experienced that.
Do you think there's some way I can leverage my privilege to help? Would writing a complaint letter do anything?
A lot of police departments, especially in metro areas with big forces, have community liaisons now, and I would probably try to contact the community liaison first (provided there is one) to report what I saw and inquire about the department's policy on suspected cases of profiling or officer harassment.
Shakers?
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