that they were in the area for something unrelated to me. Or if they were concerned that something was wrong with me, I figured I would let them know that everything was okay. It certainly never occurred to me that getting out of my car was wrong or dangerous.
As soon as I opened my car door and got out, the police officer who had started walking toward my vehicle drew his weapon and pointed it at me. I must have looked completely bewildered.
My first instinct was to run. I quickly decided that wouldn’t be smart. Then I thought for an instant that maybe these weren’t real police officers.
“Move and I’ll blow your head off!” The officer shouted the words, but I couldn’t make any sense of what he meant. I tried to stay calm; it was the first time in my life anyone had ever pointed a gun at me.
“Put your hands up!” The officer was a white man about my height. In the darkness I could only make out his black uniform and his pointed weapon.
I put my hands up and noticed that he seemed nervous. I don’t remember deciding to speak, I just remember the words coming out: “It’s all right. It’s okay.”
I’m sure I sounded afraid because I was terrified.
I kept saying the words over and over again. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Finally I said, “I live here, this is my apartment.”
I looked at the officer who was pointing the gun at my head less than fifteen feet away. I thought I saw his hands shaking.
I kept saying as calmly as I could: “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
The second officer, who had not drawn his weapon, inched cautiously toward me. He stepped on the sidewalk, circled behind my parked car, and came up behind me while the other officer continued to point the gun at me. He grabbed me by the arms and pushed me up against the back of my car. The other officer then lowered his weapon.
“What are you doing out here?” said the second officer, who seemed older than the one who had drawn his weapon. He sounded angry.
“I live here. I moved into that house down the street just a few months ago. My roommate is inside. You can go ask him.” I hated how afraid I sounded and the way my voice was shaking.
“What are you doing out in the street?”
“I was just listening to the radio.” He placed my hands on the car and bent me over the back of the vehicle. The SWAT car’s bright spotlight was still focused on me. I noticed people up the block turning on their lights and peering out of their front doors. The house next to ours came to life, and a middle-aged white man and woman walked outside and stared at me as I was leaned over the vehicle.
The officer holding me asked me for my driver’s license but wouldn’t let me move my arms to retrieve it. I told him that it was in my back pocket, and he fished my wallet out from my pants. The other officer was now leaning inside my car and going through my papers. I knew that he had no probable cause to enter my vehicle and that he was conducting an illegal search. I was about to say something when I saw him open the glove compartment. Opening objects in a parked vehicle was so incredibly illegal that I realized he wasn’t paying any attention to the rules, so saying something about it would be pointless.
There was nothing interesting in my car. There were no drugs, no alcohol, not even tobacco. I kept a giant-size bag of peanut M&Ms and Bazooka bubble gum in the glove compartment to help stave off hunger when I didn’t have time for a meal. There were just a few M&Ms left in the bag, which the officer inspected carefully. He put his nose into the bag before tossing it back. I wouldn’t be eating those M&Ms.
I had not lived at our new address long enough to get a new driver’s license, so the address on my license didn’t match the new location. There was no legal requirement to update the driver’s license, but it prompted the officer to hold me there for another ten minutes while he went back to his car to run a search on me. My neighbors grew bolder as the encounter dragged on. Even though it was late, people were coming out of their homes to