A True Story About Race and Policing
That Time When My Lyft Driver Was Arrested On a Bench Warrant for an Unpaid Ticket
He picked me up in the departure line, a trick they used to use to beat the traffic, before they forced them all to the bottom level with the cabs and small buses. Before my mom went in the home. Before the pandemic. George Floyd. Trumps’ big lie. // The driver was a Black kid. Early 20s. Not a kid really, but compared with me he was still a baby. Nice kid. Polite. He took my bag and backpack, placed them in the trunk. Offered me water. Asked about my trip. // This is a true story. Embellished, perhaps. But true in all its contours. // I’d just landed, back home from Las Vegas. A trip to see my folks after my mom’s gall bladder surgery. I took the red-eye, needed breakfast. Coffee. Sleep. I had to teach in the afternoon. Wanted a short nap before heading to school. I’d get the nap, but never make it to class. The poor kid ending up in custody, though it could’ve been worse. Two patrol cars boxing him in before we even left the airport. Armed cops pulling him from the car. // I’ve covered these stories before. When they end badly. When a police officer opens fire. Kills a Black motorist. The names are familiar. The protests expected. In St. Louis just two months before, protests erupted following the acquittal of an officer who had been charged in the murder of a 24-year-old six years earlier. Police shot Anthony Lamar Smith in his car after a car chase. They said he was reaching for a gun. But the evidence was unclear. The cop got off. The city settled. // I kept thinking of Philando Castile. Shot in his car. He told the cops he had a legally registered gun. Did everything right. Still ended up dead. That was 2016. It was captured by his girlfriend on Facebook Live. Broadcast on social media. One of nearly 1,000 shot and killed by police in 2016, according to The Washington Post. Another thousand would be shot in 2017 and nearly as many each year since. This kid could have joined the list. Just one wrong move and the cop could’ve fired. // I was teaching Brent Staples’ essay “Just Walk on By” that semester. An exploration of how being a Black man in America means altering public space. Being seen as a threat. And how that perception leads to interaction with police. With violence. That “being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself.” // This kid. Thomas. He’d done nothing wrong. Nothing important. He was driving Lyft. To pay the bills, or maybe earn enough to go to college. I imagined his story. A kid from a tough neighborhood trying to earn an honest living. Maybe he stocked shelves or swept floors. Drove at night. This is all conjecture. No better than the assumptions the cops bring to table. I didn’t get a chance to ask. Never had the opportunity to see Thomas in more than two dimensions. // We were about to leave. He told me to sit back. To relax. He put the car in drive. But we never moved. Patrol cars penned him in, one behind, cherry lights spinning and flashing. The other angled in front. No where to go. Two cops approach the car. Hands on guns. Ask for documents. Tell Thomas he had a warrant. Unpaid ticket. // “I paid it,” he said. “Have it here.” Starts rifling through a mess of paper in the console. Looking for the receipt. “I paid it,” he repeats. // I couldn’t see much from the back seat. Just the officers’ belts. Their hands on their guns. I kept flashing to the Castile video. To Castile reaching for paperwork. Telling police he wasn’t reaching for his gun. Police firing seven times into the car. // I flash to a different traffic stop. I was speeding on Route 1, not far from home. One cop. He approaches the car, hands in full view. Looks in, recognizes me as the reporter covering his department. Let’s me go. No threat. Not even a ticket. Perhaps it would have been different had I unpaid fines. Perhaps, I would have been treated as a criminal. A gangbanger. An evil-doer. I doubt it. They would have been polite. Might have asked me to get out of my car. Maybe. But I’m white. Middle-aged. I’m not perceived as a threat. // Unlike Thomas. They pulled him from the car. Lean him against it. “What’s going on?” I ask. I’m still in the back seat. Doors closed. I’m feeling panic. Feeling trapped. “What’s going on?” I ask again. I hear Staples lamenting that he only had to “make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman” and there could be “the possibility of death.” // The cop looks in the car. “Who is that?” he asks. “I drive Lyft,” Thomas said. “I just picked him up.” Thomas wants to call his mom. She can clear it up. Thomas tells them it’s all a mistake. He paid the ticket. They tell him he can call from the station. They arrest him. Cuff him. I’m still in the back seat. They tell me to get out. I do. I ask for my bags. They ignore me. “I need my bags,” I say. “His luggage is in the trunk,” Thomas says. They turn to me, back to Thomas. Take his keys. Open the trunk. Point to my suitcase and backpack. “Those yours?” Yes. I grab them. Stand on the sidewalk. Next to the car. They grab. Thomas and force him into a patrol car. Push his head down. Slam the door. I can hear them call for a wrecker to impound the car. They drive off. Not a word to me. No explanation, aside from an unpaid ticket, a Black kid, and an America pretends to be color blind. //
*