{"id":49321,"date":"2020-08-05T19:07:33","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T23:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=49321"},"modified":"2020-08-05T19:07:33","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T23:07:33","slug":"the-other-part-of-the-aurora-stolen-van-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2020\/08\/the-other-part-of-the-aurora-stolen-van-saga.html","title":{"rendered":"The Other Part of the Aurora “Stolen Van” Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By now you may have heard that officers in Aurora, Colorado, made a Black woman and her four children lay face down on hot asphalt on the claim that their van was \u2026 a stolen motorcycle the police were looking for.<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right. The police somehow thought the family\u2019s van was a missing motorcycle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Video and photos of the incident have created a swelling of outrage, and the Aurora Police Department has responded by saying that this is simply their policy for dealing with cases where a vehicle is believed to be stolen. But despite all the furor, like me, maybe you\u00a0hadn\u2019t heard this part<\/a>\u00a0yet:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPart of the reason for the mixup may have been that the car was reported as stolen earlier in the year, police said,\u201d AP reports. (Not that this excuse clarifies literally anything.)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like something about the car being reported stolen,\u201d Brittney Gilliam, the driver of the car, told 9 News<\/a>. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like \u2018this happened months ago, you guys cleared it [and] we got to pick up the car the next day, the very next day, so I\u2019m not understanding what\u2019s going on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no excuse why you didn\u2019t handle it a different type of way,\u201d Gilliam said referring to APD. \u201cYou could have even told them \u2018step off to the side let me ask your mom or your auntie a few questions so we can get this cleared up.\u2019 There [were] different ways to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t know what role the van\u2019s earlier theft played in what happened this weekend\u2014in the police somehow mistaking the van for a stolen motorcycle\u2014but let\u2019s imagine that it did play a role. Imagine that your van is stolen and that you recover it, and that six months later the cops pull their guns on you and make you lay face-down on the ground \u2026 because they pulled up an old report that your van was stolen.<\/p>\n

Your van. The van you\u2019re driving. The van that is yours.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like if your job is to protect the people living in a house, but instead you shoot and kill them, mistaking them for a burglar. Oh wait, that happened. Atatiana Jefferson<\/a>. Botham Jean<\/a>. Heck, I\u2019ll add Breonna Taylor<\/a> and Aiyana Jones<\/a> for good measure. And what exactly is to be gained from killing or terrorizing the very people they\u2019re supposed to be protecting? Who benefits?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what one of the children forced to lay on the asphalt in Aurora had to say of her experience:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like they don\u2019t care,\u201d 14-year-old Teriana Thomas, one of the detained children, told News 9. Then she asked a question that many Black people whose trust in law enforcement has long been eroded have asked: \u201cWho am I going to call when my life is in danger?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s almost as though cops are there to serve white people. And indeed, much has been written about the origins of the modern police in slave patrols and in white terrorist groups in the decades following the Civil War. Much has been written about the ways in which the police function to protect white people and white property, and not to protect or serve Black Americans.<\/p>\n

Me, I\u2019m still stuck on the fact that the police may have though the car was stolen in part because it\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>stolen earlier in the year \u2026 and so on that basis they proceeded to terrify and terrorize\u00a0the car\u2019s legal owners.<\/em>\u00a0You know, the same ones it was stolen from earlier.<\/p>\n

There is just something outrageous about this\u2014that being Black and reporting your van stolen might later mean being hassled by the police, months or years after<\/em> you get the van back,\u00a0on the claim that you stole it.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is wrong<\/em>. Utterly and completely\u00a0wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know whether the fact that the van had been stolen earlier in the year actually contributed to what happened—to the police somehow mistaking a van for a motorcycle—but let’s imagine that it did. Imagine that your van is stolen and that you recover it, and that six months later the cops pull their guns on you and make you lay face-down on the ground … because they pulled up an old report that your van was stolen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":49324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[553,208],"class_list":["post-49321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-police-brutality","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Other Part of the Aurora "Stolen Van" Saga<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don't know whether the fact that the van had been stolen earlier in the year actually contributed to what happened---to the police somehow mistaking a van for a motorcycle---but let's imagine that it did. 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