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“Aye man, you ain’t got to do her like that!” I said through clenched teeth. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my ears. I didn’t understand what was happening or why the cops were treating my family and me like we were criminals but there was only so much I could take. I tried to lift myself from the table. When that didn’t work, I rocked from side to side. I had to get free.
“We know our rights!” Torrey yelled from the ground. “You can’t treat us like this, you racist pigs! You’re doing this because we Black! Black people have rights too! I’m calling the news as soon as I get up from this floor to report yet another case of racial profiling and pig brutality. Where are your white hoods you whack ass lynch mob!”
The officer holding Torrey pulled his gun and rested it on the back of her head. “Shut the fuck up!”
“Fuck naw!” I yelled still attempting to get free. Police or not, no one pulls a gun on my family.
“Stop resisting,” the cop holding me rumbled, struggling to contain me.
I fought until I had freed myself from the officer’s grip and charged full steam, toward the cop with the gun on my sister. He saw me coming and moved his gun from the back of Torrey’s head and trained it on me. I didn’t care about his weapon, all I cared about was the way he was handling my sister, and that was about to stop. I made it within inches of the cop but was tackled just before putting my hands on him.
“Tell him to calm down before he dies in here,” one cop yelled with his knee in my back.
“Samuel, baby please,” I heard my mother cry out.
“We are going to be alright, El,” Torrey cried. “Please calm down.”
All the cops in the room were working together, attempting to contain me. I felt knees, hands, and batons all working simultaneously to restrain me. I expected to feel shoes and fists next. My temper had gotten me into more altercations than I cared to count. It was one thing to aggravate me, but my family was an entirely different story. I had zero tolerance for people mishandling them. Once someone came for my family, it would take an army to stop me from hurting whoever tried to hurt them. People generally left us alone.
“El, we’re okay, I promise,” Torrey sobbed.
I stopped fighting after hearing my sister sobbing. She never cried. I felt the cold steel around my wrist and knew they’d handcuffed me. The fight was over.
“…You have the right to an attorney,” the officer continued while breathing heavily, “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights as I have just read them to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
I nodded my head and let the officers pull me from the ground and lead me out of the house.
“We are right behind you, El,” Torrey called out.
“Don’t hurt my baby,” my mother cried.
* * *
After arrivingat the police station, I was taken into a small room where I sat for what felt like hours, handcuffed to the small metal table in front of me. There were no windows, no air flow, no sound; just a tiny stale room with a two-way mirror covering the wall in front of me. I had no idea what the cop was talking about when he said I was being arrested for murder. I had knocked out a few dudes in the streets, but I fought with my hands. I wasn’t a murderer. I hoped this was all a misunderstanding.
I fit the profile of every criminal ever described on the news; tall, between the ages of nineteen and thirty with a low haircut and a dark hoodie. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be questioned by the police, about where I was going or what I was doing when I was minding my own business.
Two men finally walked into the room.
They must be the detectives.
They brought the smell of cigarettes and coffee in with them, reminding me that I hadn’t had the chance to finish the dinner my mother had prepared. Hopefully, she put my plate in the microwave.
Both the detectives were white. One was taller and rounder than the other. The taller one was balding, but he was wearing a comb-over thing that white men wear when they are trying to cover a bald spot. It’s so dumb because the comb-over is not hiding anything. We still see the bald spot! The shorter one looked younger than the tall one, he stared at me like he caught me in the bed with his wife or something. I stared back. This crap didn’t intimidate me. I didn’t do anything.
The older detective began, “Sam, is that what they call you? Sam?”
I didn’t respond.
No one calls me Sam. I hate that nickname.
“Sam, I am detective Brown. This is detective Beatty. We have some questions for you.”
I maintained eye contact without saying anything.
“Where were you two nights ago around eleven p.m.?”
Two nights ago? I was out with my boys after I got off work at the Foot Locker in Northwest Plaza Mall. After we played a couple games at the bowling alley, I called Delina, and she let me run through and hit it real quick before I went home.
