Being randomly stopped and questioned by police is nothing new for black men or women. But it almost ended one legal career before it even had a chance to start. At The Marshall Project, Johnathan S. Perkins writes about being stopped and questioned by police while walking across his law school campus in 2011.
I was walking home from a party on the evening of April 1, 2011, when I was stopped by two officers from the University of Virginia Police Department. They told me that I “fit the description” of a man they were looking for. Soon, I was pushed against their car as they searched my body for weapons and went through my wallet. Humiliated, I complied with their every command.
At the end of the encounter, which turned up nothing, the officers mocked me when I asked for their names and badge numbers. They refused to give me either but followed closely behind me in their patrol car as I hurried home.
Read more about Perkins' experience at The Marshall Project.
