Where's the Weed?

That’s the question a 19-year old Black teen was asked after he was stopped (by State Troopers in Long Island, NY) for allegedly speeding. But, check this out…not only did the troopers want to know where the kid, Ricky Walker, was stashing “the weed,” the troopers also forced him to throw his car keys out of the window and onto the ground.

How often does that happen in a routine traffic stop—even for speeding? Talk about racial profiling. The troopers instantly thought they would find drugs and assumed they had just encountered someone about to lead them on a high-speed chase. But, they also stereotypically thought they had found a real threat for violence in the baby-faced teenager.

One trooper told the teen that if he looked at the trooper (in the rearview mirror) one more time, “I’ll shoot you in the back of your head…You [expletive] bastard – you move – I’ll kill you!”

This wasn’t about a kid speeding. This was about a Black teen driving a Mercedes. He was DWB (Driving While Black) and doing it in a nice car. This made him a drug dealer, to the troopers.

Just as an FYI, the car belonged to the teen’s mom—a traffic enforcement officer for the NYPD. The trooper that made the stop apologized to the teen, after he left the station a few hours later (with a speeding ticket).

Ricky Walker has retained a lawyer because it appears he was racially profiled by the troopers.

Source: The NY Daily Post, June 20, 2007, Black driver’s ‘bias’ ordeal, by Kieran Crowley