Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that he experienced police harassment as a “black man” because he got stopped for speeding twice on the New Jersey Turnpike, and also had to talk to the police once when he was on his way to see a movie in Georgetown.
“I just had the opportunity to sit down with some wonderful young people and to hear them talk about the mistrust they have at a young age,” Holder said Wednesday in remarks at a community college in Ferguson, Mo., which is currently embroiled in race riots.
“These are young people and already they are concerned about potential interactions they might have with the police. I understand that mistrust. I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.”
Wow! What? A black man? Eric Holder? He must have some pretty hardcore experiences to draw from to illuminate these recollections of police harassment.
“I can remember being stopped on the New Jersey turnpike on two occasions and accused of speeding,” Holder said.
Unbelievable. I thought this was America. (I still owe a few hundred, if not thousand, at this point for going the speed of traffic and I’m not even a black man, so I can only imagine what Holder went through. Go on…)
“Pulled over …. ‘Let me search your car’ … Go through the trunk of my car, look under the seats and all this kind of stuff. I remember how humiliating that was and how angry I was and the impact it had on me.”
Wow. That was very brave of you for sharing, Eric. (Wasn’t that brave of Eric? Go ahead. Give him a round of applause). I, too, once got stopped by the police with three white friends in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and was accused of being suspicious, then stood on the side of the road with my arms over my head while they searched the car for drugs. We got a court date for violating a post-flood curfew and I had to plead guilty to some kind of trespassing offense in criminal court. Liberal opposition researchers in Washington, D.C. already know that. So, as a white man, I can relate.
Holder goes on.
“I think about my time in Georgetown – a nice neighborhood of Washington – and I am running to a picture movie at about 8 o’clock at night.”
A picture movie?
“I am running with my cousin. Police car comes driving up, flashes his lights, yells, ‘Where you going? Hold it!’ I say ‘Woah, I’m going to a movie.'” Now my cousin started mouthing off. I’m like, ‘This is not where we want to go. Keep quiet.’ I’m angry and upset.”
Word? I can’t even afford to eat lunch in Georgetown, so I can only imagine.
“We negotiate the whole thing and we walk to our movie. At the time that he stopped me, I was a federal prosecutor. I wasn’t a kid. I was a federal prosecutor. I worked at the United States Department of Justice. So I’ve confronted this myself.”
They stopped you for running to your picture movie? This police harassment must end! Fight the Power! No Justice No Peace! TAWANA TOLD THE TRUTH! (Throws molotov cocktail).