08/22/2024
WHEN YOU "FIT THE DESCRIPTION"!
10 years ago today, my freedom was taken away.
Within seconds while innocently walking by myself from a restaurant on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, California, I was detained and told to sit on the curb with my legs extended and crossed, of a very busy street, during rush hour traffic.
Within minutes, I was surrounded by 6 police cars, handcuffed very tightly, fully searched for weapons, and placed back on the curb.
Within an hour, I was transported to a Police Headquarters, photographed, finger printed and put under a $100,000 bail; accused of armed bank robbery of a Citibank.
Within an evening, I was wrongly arrested, locked up, denied a phone call, denied explanation of charges against me, denied ever being read my rights, and delayed from being able to speak to my lawyer…..all because I was mis-indentified as the wrong “tall, bald head, Black male,” ... "fitting the description."
I still get that at the time law enforcement officers didn’t know that I was a law abiding citizen of the community and that in my (then) 51 years of existence, had never been handcuffed or arrested for any reason. All they saw, was someone fitting the description of a tall, Black, male. It didn’t matter if I was a "Aldis Hodge BLACK", a "Michael B Jordan BLACK", or "a Stephen Curry BLACK"
I still get that the officers didn’t know that I was an award nominated and award winning business professional; a well educated American citizen; a Consultant, a producer, and a Marketing Exec; or, had been very active in serving the communities that I had lived in all throughout my life. They didn't need to because, they saw someone fitting the description.
And, what I didn’t get then, but much better understand now after the revealing of Project 2025………is, why, during the 45 minutes that they had me on the curb, handcuffed in the sun, before they locked me up and took away my civil rights - MY FREEDOM - that they could not simply review the ATM and bank’s HD video footage to clearly see that the “tall, bald headed, black male”… did not fit MY description.
It was time then, and it is still time now for a change in the way OUR law enforcement officers "serve and protect" us.
Fortunately, 10 years later, due in large part of the nationwide criminal justice reform activity initiated as a result of the arrest, new laws now exist in 23 states that existed in none of the 50 states before! Laws that automatically expunge an arrest record of an innocent person whose charges are never brought forward.
Some progress indeed…
But we are still, in a Fight for our Freedom… a Fight for our Future!
