College Dean Accuses Officers of Stopping Her for Walking While Black’ -Police Video Differs

tea party crusaders ^ | October 31st, 2015 at 8:48 PM. | Juliette Washington

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism school at the University of North Texas, is used to taking a walk at daybreak. But rain delayed her exercise regimen until later Saturday morning when she began traversing the streets of her well-to-do Corinth neighborhood.

POLICE VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_OvluMqxI

But soon “flashing lights and sirens from a police vehicle” paused her walk, she wrote in a column for the Dallas Morning News.

Bland was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and she’s black.

“Like most African-Americans, I am familiar with the phrase ‘driving while black,’ but was I really being stopped for walking on the street in my own neighborhood?” she asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “In the words of Sal Ruibal, ‘Walking while black is a crime in many jurisdictions. May God have mercy on our nation.’”

Bland said she asked the officers if there was a problem but didn’t “remember getting a decent answer before one of the officers asked me where I lived and for identification.”

More from Bland:

I remember saying something like, “Around the corner. This is my neighborhood, and I’m a taxpayer who pays a lot of taxes.” As for the I.D. question, how many Americans typically carry I.D. with them on their morning walk? Do you realize I bought the hoodie I was wearing after completing the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education in 2014? Do you realize I have hosted gatherings for family, friends, faculty, staff and students in my home? Not once was a police officer called. To those officers, my education or property-owner status didn’t matter. One officer captured my address and date of birth.

Bland figured she “was simply a brown face in an affluent neighborhood. I told the police I didn’t like to walk in the rain, and one of them told me, ‘My dog doesn’t like to walk in the rain.’ Ouch!”

She added that “for safety’s sake” she used her iPhone to take a photo of the officers and their patrol car’s license plate, as Bland didn’t want to end up like “the dozens of others who have died while in police custody.” Within hours after posting about the incident on Facebook, Bland said more than 100 friends spread the news across the country.

“You are now in the company of Henry Louis Gates and others with the same experience,” she said one of her former students wrote her. “We must stop racial profiling.”

Bland added that she stopped by the mayor’s house and asked him, “Do I look like a criminal?” She continued, “Mayor Bill Heidemann said no and shook his head in disbelief. I appreciate the mayor being a good neighbor, but why should he need to verify that I am not a menace to society?”

But after Corinth Police Chief Debra Walthall caught wind of the incident, she wrote a response, which was in the second part of the Dallas Morning News piece, and said that the encounter was about Bland’s safety, not race — and that dashcam video from the officer’s patrol car proves it.

[PghBaldy]

I am white. Have been stopped by police at various times in my life. They always asked for ID. BTW, from the small video I watched, she looked crazy walking in the street waving her arms, especially when there was a sidewalk.

[sport]

It was a set up.

[euram]

Just another black attempting to get her 15 minutes of fame, and maybe some cash. If the pick-up had hit her, she would have sued the driver, and probably the police for not patrolling enough.

[joshua c]

“The cops were polite enough but there was no reason to ask for ID.”

I agree but the police are trained to always ask. She could have refused.

[Glad2bnuts]

Sorry, but almost any encounter you have with police these days they ask for your ID. I was passenger in a car with a missing windshield wiper, in August, with no rain. I was asked for my ID and produced it. The cops were fishing for something, I don’t know what. I was irritated, but no way would I argue with them. I chirped at them, told them what I was thinking, but co-operated just the same. Probably was a “riding while native american” bias.

[absalom01]

Let's say you're right. What offense *would* call for producing ID? According to the original source, the offense, "Impeding traffic is a Class C misdemeanor"

So, only felonies? Or only if a citation is eventually given? Would she have preferred the ticket, do you think?

Really, I'm curious. Just when and where can the police ask for ID from a person who's committed an offense in their presence?

[Trailerpark Badass]

She committed an infraction by impeding traffic. She could have been given a ticket. What is so hard for you to understand? Guess what, minor infractions are what expose a lot of bigger crimes and fugitives. That's called "police work."

if people don't like interacting with the police, they shouldn't behave in ways guaranteed to attract their attention.

[Eagles6]

Walking down the middle of the street flapping her arms like she was trying to attain flight and she writes at a 6th grade level.

It was probably a mental health stop.

[Nifster]

May have been bur she went right o the race card when the officers tried to deal with her

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

You can be an university “dean” and be stupid at the same time. No law or guarantee against it, as she proved.

Next time she may end up as one of Hillary’s “bumps in the road” and nobody will give a good crap.

One less Darwin Award nominee to contend with.

[Jeff Chandler]

Did you watch the video?

[billyboy15]

The police dash cam and their report said she was almost hit by a pick up truck and was impeding traffic.

[Fresh Wind]

The video isn’t very good, but from the way she was dressed, it might not have been possible to identify her race until she turned around AFTER she had been stopped.

[dennisw]

What a dim witted dean. Getting a great job she does not deserve from affirmative action was not good enough. So she prayed every day she would hit the ghetto lottery while out for a stroll

Even though she lives in a wealthy non- ghetto part of town.
What a laugh!!!!!

[dennisw]

Very suspicious that she is the Dean of JOURNALISM!

How is it suspicious that some dope at a tax funded public university benefited from affirmative action? Another rip off of the taxpayer!

[Fhios]

Standard procedure with lots of precedents.

[Fhios]

I don’t understand your reference to tea party in there. Are you praising the Tea Party or blaming the Tea Party?

[Antoninus II]

Yes, because blacks always walk down the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk.

They do it in my neighborhood all the time. Like establishing their dominance over "turf".

[bt-99]

we had a death in our townships a few years back where woman was hit from behind walking on the wrong side of the road.For a short time police were cautioning people that the law says to walk facing traffic. I don’t know if they do that any more but walking with your back to traffic with ear buds invites disaster.

[xrmusn]

She can take her phone but can’t take ID?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Why not take a picture of ID and keep on phone...Just in case you lose wallet or like this, out and about with phone and no ID?????
Of course that would be racist or sexist for suggesting it.

We have a society that almost demands an ID for 99% of daily actions yet rebel at the suggesting of showing one when voting or ‘stopped’ by police?

Some insanity is just unexplainable.

Like Black Lives Matter except for Black on Black and visits to the Abortion clinic.