Babysitting While White: The Path of Least Resistance
Simple Justice:
Scott Henson’s description of his encounter with police while walking with his granddaughter has received significant attention, as it well should. What is curious, though not entirely surprising, is how many comments Scott received at his Grits for Breakfast post from people who blamed him, some rather vehemently, for “causing” the problem.
Why? Because Scott didn’t travel the path of least resistance.
The gist of many commenters is that this problem could have been “avoided” had Scott merely cooperated with police rather than challenged their authority to detain and question him for no better reason than a 911 call was made about a white man walking with a black child. An early commenter wrote:
Simply informing the officer, upon initial questioning, that you are walking your granddaughter home from the park after an unexpected but enjoyable morning of babysitting. And boy my granddaughter sure does like to pet those cats down the street. Might that have gone a long way to a more civil relationship between police and community. Geez. What an uptight prick.
A later commenter wrote:
C’mon Grits, why don’t you stop being so outraged for a second and look at from the police perspective.
Someone called 911 about a suspicious person with a child. In this age of litigation, the police have to check it out. Imagine if that child had turned up missing? There would be a blog post railing about how the police were too lazy to just make a quick stop and investigate things. Isn’t it better for all parties if the police are protecting and serving?
As for refusing to answer questions, that is your right but it is certainly unusual that a person with a child would refuse to cooperate with the police in this situation. You basically turned a quick interaction into an ordeal…