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Florida State Attorney Stopped for Driving While Black

After pulling over Aramis Ayala, Florida’s only black state attorney, police officers were shown scrambling for an explanation for why they pulled her over in the first place. The officer initially told her that when he ran her tag it came back in a way he hadn’t seen before.

Where this gets really interesting is that when she asks him why he ran her tag in the first place, he claims they just run tags randomly at traffic lights to make sure cars aren’t stolen. And also that her windows were tinted and may be too dark. I’m not sure about that, but I’m pretty sure he pulled her over because something in the car was too dark for his liking.

The body camera footage of the incident lacks audio until the officer initiates the stop, so we have no way of knowing what he said while running Ayala’s tag. I wouldn’t want to assume that a white police officer just saw a black woman in a nice car and assumed it was stolen, that would be racial profiling, and that would be wrong.

Look, it’s funny to see how deferential this peckerwood gets when he learns he’s essentially just pulled over his boss for Driving While Black, but it’s a problem. There’s nothing funny about how wrong these unnecessary traffic stops can go. Philando Castile was shot dead in front of his four-year-old daughter because a police officer claimed he feared for his life after smelling marijuana in the car. The reason given for that stop was that Castile looked like a robbery suspect because of his “wide-set nose.”

There are no easy answers for how to solve these sorts of problems that plague our society. Things like gun violence, racial anxiety and income inequality are serious problems that can sometimes feel like they’re unsolvable. That’s why it’s important to stop and have a laugh about some terrible tabloid thinking Ashton Kutcher is boffing his cousin every once in a while.

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Pauly Incorrect
Pauly Incorrect
6 years ago

Suspicion of carrying concealed fried chicken.