Pastor Michael Jennings of Vision of Abundant Life Ministries in Sylacauga was, as one would suspect, a good guy, meaning that he was engaged in a good deed and perceived himself to be on the correct side of the good guy curve, where a pastor ought to be. And to be as fair as humanly possible to Pastor Jennings, he was not wrong. But he wasn’t quite right either.
It all started with Jennings being a good neighbor, according to Georgia-based civil rights attorney Harry Daniels, one of three attorneys representing Jennings.
Daniels said Jennings’ long-time neighbor asked him to water his yard while the neighbor was out of town but while he was performing his neighborly duties, police say someone reported a suspicious vehicle and person on the property.
In the video, Jennings can be heard telling police the gold SUV didn’t belong to him. Jennings told officers his name and said his home was across the street.
And, indeed, it appears that everything Pastor Jennings told the police was correct, that he was there to water his neighbor’s garden and that the gold SUV wasn’t his, and he wasn’t the person named as its owner. But a neighbor called the police.
“Y’all racially profiled me,” Jennings said in the video.
“We’re not racially profiling you,” the unidentified officer responded.
“Yes, you did,” replied Jennings.
“No sir, no sir,” the arresting officer rebutted. “We’re not about that okay?”
Assuming the police received a call about a suspicious person, there was only one appropriate response, which was to determine why the “suspicious” person was there, what authority they had to be there and whether he was engaged in any criminal activity. The stop was not racial profiling, but a normal, and proper, response to a person calling in a report.
When Jennings told them he lived across the street, he knew it to be true, but the police did not, anymore than they knew that he was Jennings as opposed to the gold SUV’s owner. Had he been that suspicious person about whom the report came in, and they neglected to ascertain his identity and the accuracy of the information he provided, and then Jennings went on to ransack the house, would the police have not been remiss in their duty?
From the police perspective, they needed verification of the information Jennings provided. Not so much because they didn’t believe him, but their duty isn’t to believe anyone. Trust, but verify is a fine slogan, but there is no reason for the police to trust when responding to a call.
Jennings, however, “knew” his rights, that if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, then he had no obligation to show the police his identification, and they had no authority to demand he do so. And from his perspective, his position on the good guy curve, this all made enormous sense. Indeed, this has become an increasingly regular phenomenon, people approached by police who demand answers to question and verification, such as identification, to conform the truthfulness of their statements. And people are increasingly suffering for it.
The error in the calculation here is that Jennings may well have been aware of the fact that he’s doing nothing wrong and engaged in no conduct that would justify police making a Terry stop. While the police had reasonable suspicion based upon the report by a neighbor of suspicious activity, justifying their investigation and determination that no crime was afoot, Jennings didn’t know that. But the police did. Jennings may have believed that the cops were there because he was black, but the cops knew they were there because of the report.
At this point, one might inquire why the police didn’t just explain this to Jennings to obtain his cooperation in clearing matters up. And that’s an entirely fair question, although there are countervailing factors, bearing in mind that the police still didn’t know whether they’re dealing with a good Samaritan or a heinous burglar. Do they seize control of the situation from a good guy or do they make simpering excuses to a burglar to get him to play nice?
Could this entire situation have been cleared up with little fuss by merely providing an ID? And if the problem was that he didn’t have it on him, the solution was to offer to go to his home and retrieve it, or if there was someone home, to ask them to bring it. The point is that this could have ended the inquiry and its inherent unpleasantness.
But Pastor Jennings believed himself to be righteous in his refusal, and it’s hard to fault him for believing that given much of what people are informed these days about their rights and the limits on police demands, particularly when it comes to black people who, like Jennings, presume themselves to be profiled when they haven’t done anything wrong.
As noted long ago, police rarely grasp that the reaction to their commands tends to differ wildly when the person with whom they’re interacting is a good guy. Bad dudes know why they’re being stopped. Good guys have no clue. Bad dudes know not to make a bad situation worse. Good guys are outraged that they are being treated so shabbily by police. And police tend to be oblivious to any of this.
But isn’t the cluelessness a two-way street, where both the good guy and the cop are mistaken in their lack of appreciation of what the other is doing and why? Well sure, and the good guy would save himself a great deal of aggravation by cooperating rather than asserting what he believes to be his rights. As the old mantra goes, comply now, grieve later. On the other hand, the police are trained and equipped to handle various interactions with the public, whereas the public isn’t trained to appreciate the unknowns involved in their interaction with police. Let the trained public servant carry the weight of accommodation, just as he gets to carry the gun and shield. But it would still be wiser to comply than be on the television the next day, hopefully still alive.
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