It's not that this officer need to have gone after her for being black. The big issue is that he just simply can not comprehend - as he indicates from the start - why she would be afraid of the police if she hasn't done anything wrong.
And then everything goes downhill once he's made the decision not to believe that she's actually scared, and interprets everything in that light.
Unfortunately this problem self-amplifies - this woman got one more reason to be afraid of the police, and this story gives other people reasons to be afraid of the police, and the only way to deal with that is for the police to learn to deal with that fear.
What people also seem to forget is that irrespective of racism, police needs to be able to deal with people who get panic attacks or have mental health issues or are intoxicated all the time. If they can not understand that someone might be genuinely in panic without being a criminal, and acting accordingly, the racism or not those officers will treat innocent people in ways they don't deserve.
It's not that this officer need to have gone after her for being black. The big issue is that he just simply can not comprehend - as he indicates from the start - why she would be afraid of the police if she hasn't done anything wrong.
And then everything goes downhill once he's made the decision not to believe that she's actually scared, and interprets everything in that light.
Unfortunately this problem self-amplifies - this woman got one more reason to be afraid of the police, and this story gives other people reasons to be afraid of the police, and the only way to deal with that is for the police to learn to deal with that fear.
What people also seem to forget is that irrespective of racism, police needs to be able to deal with people who get panic attacks or have mental health issues or are intoxicated all the time. If they can not understand that someone might be genuinely in panic without being a criminal, and acting accordingly, the racism or not those officers will treat innocent people in ways they don't deserve.