“Stop And Frisk”

The first time this happened to my son he was 15yrs. To anyone out there he used to look like 12yrs. One morning while he was on his way to a 10:00AM college class at City Tech., two policemen stopped him, the moment he got off the train. He said they went through his pockets and his backpack. The questions started;

“It is 9:30AM! Why aren’t you in school?”

“I am going to school.”

“What school are you going too?”

“City Tech, 300 Jay Street.”
“How old are you?”

“15yrs.”

“You are 15!?”

“Yes.”

One of the officers found his college ID and the questions continued.

“Where did you get this ID?”

“From the college, when I registered.”

“We have to check this out.”

While all of this was happening my son said that he felt embarrassed because people were coming into the subway to wait on their trains. Also trains kept stopping and off-loading people. Everyone was looking at him. Some of them looked with eyes that were saying another African American did something illegal.

After they thoroughly searched him and found no illegal items, on him, but being black, they let him go. He arrived to class 10:35AM that morning, now he had to go through the process of explaining to his professor, why he was late for class…