On the anniversary of Mike Brown’s death in Ferguson (he was an unarmed 18-year-old gunned down by a police officer who has never been charged for any crime relating to Mike’s death), two arrests have come to light and they show exactly the difference between committing a crime while white and committing a crime while black.
The first case is of a 21-year-old girl who was pulled over by police for not stopping at a stop sign. The officer claimed he could smell marijuana on Charnesia Corley, from Houston, Texas, so cuffed her and put her in his car while he searched hers. He then radioed for a female officer to come, so she could do a vaginal search.
When this officer turned up, Charnesia says she: ‘tells me to pull my pants down, I said, “Ma’am, I don’t have any underwear on.” She says, “Well, that doesn’t matter. Pull your pants down.”’
At that point, she was told to bend over: ‘I bend over and she proceeds to try to force her hand inside of me. I tell her, “Ma’am, No. You cannot do this.”’
FYI, this was in the middle of a parking lot and at no point did Charnesia consent (the officers cited the fact she’d told them they could do a strip search on the notes to justify doing an internal cavity search). Charnesia was then arrested for resisting arrest and possession of marijuana (it’s not known where the weed was located).
She’s now got an attorney and told KTRK: ‘I feel like they sexually assaulted me! I really do. I feel disgusted, downgraded, humiliated.’
Meanwhile, over in Iowa, a white 20-year-old boy called Gilbert Phelps was arrested for speeding at 2am. When pulled over by an officer, the officer noticed: ‘an odor of ingested alcohol coming from the cabin of the vehicle.’ Gilbert was taken to a station for breathalyser tests by officer Ben Hektoen, whose notes on the situation include this gem:
‘During the testing process the defendant requested to take a SnapChat selfie with me to which I happily obliged. He said he captioned the photo using emoji icons showing a police car, next to a passenger car, next to a tow truck.’
Yep. Crime while black in America – you’re doomed. Crime while white in America? It’s a big old lol!
Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, have escalated after another teenager has been left critically injured (and arrested on alleged assault against police charges), dozens more have been arrested and a state of emergency has been called. Over the weekend, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders added ‘Racial Justice’ to his website only after two #BlackLivesMatter protestors interrupted a speech of his in Seattle, to explain just how racist America can be.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.