Musician and inspirational speaker Coffey Anderson released an instructional video on July 7 on how to survive a traffic stop. The video has 4.1 million views and counting.
Anderson says:
“I’m going to give you some simple things that are going to help it be a safer situation for both the police officer and for you as a civilian.”
Anderson advises people to have their car turned off, identification on the dash, both hands on the steering wheel, and radio volume at zero. He goes on to advise that the driver can help de-escalate a traffic stop by easing an officer’s adrenaline.
He emphasizes that it is a bad idea to sit on your wallet.
Anderson ends with:
“This is about going home…At the end of the day it’s about stereotypes. The stereotypes that I’ve seen of policemen was the video from Rodney King, and a lot of the stereotypes that they see of African-American men are not positive.”
While it seems counter intuitive that civilians would need instructions on how to survive an interaction with those employed to protect them, recent events suggest it might be a necessity.
The video was released following a series of senseless tragedies.
It started with a man named Alton Sterling who was killed outside a Triple S Food Mart where he was known to work selling CDs. A disturbing cell phone video of Sterling being shot at close range while he was pinned down by police quickly went viral on social media. In a heartbreaking interview the mother of Sterling’s oldest son, just 15-years-old, describes the impact of this tragedy.
Sterling’s son is seen next to her breaking down into tears and crying:
“I want my daddy.”
Alton Sterling marks the 558th person to be shot and killed by the police in the U.S. this year.
Americans barely had time to process this tragedy when in Minnesota, Diamond Reynolds live streamed a video of what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop. Her fiance, Philando Castile, was pulled over for a broken tail light. Reynolds and her four-year-old daughter were then forced to witness her fiance being murdered as they sat in the car with him.
In the video, Reynolds narrates that Castile had informed the officer that he had a license to carry a weapon and that he was shot while complying with orders to take out his driver’s license.
In the video Diamond Reynolds says:
“Oh my god please don’t tell me he is dead. Please don’t tell me my boyfriend just went like that.”
Protesters gathered across the country to mourn the Sterling and Castile murders, to demand police accountability, and to fight for equality.
As reported by the Huffington Post:
“The Washington Post’s review found that of the unarmed men shot and killed by police last year, 40 percent were black ― even though black men only make up 6 percent of the population. The Guardian, also looking at 2015 data, found that young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers.”
Tragically, the protest in Dallas, TX turned into a bloodbath when the police became the targets. A sniper shooting from an elevated position murdered five police officers, injured seven officers, and injured two civilians. The sniper, Micah Xavier Johnson, was killed by a bomb squad robot. An investigation to determine if he coordinated this attack with help from others is still ongoing.
Chief David Brown said:
“We won’t rest until we bring everyone involved to justice.”
The attack on police challenge the assumption that officers are not vulnerable. In this instance, officers gathered to do their job and ensure safety and freedom of speech were gunned down and murdered from a planned vantage point.
Although police work has become progressively safer, 2013 saw the lowest number of officer fatalities in six decades, hatred towards the police could begin to undo that progress. We can’t allow that. That hatred endangers lives and makes it harder to attract quality candidates.
As relationships between community and police continue to strain, everyone must continue to fight. We must fight for a better relationship between police officers and community. We must fight for accountability and high standards from police departments. We must fight for equal treatment for all of our citizens.
We must fight to make the job of policing more attractive so we can recruit the best possible candidates.
We cannot allow ourselves to give into hate. We cannot demonize all police because of the rapes and murders committed by a few.
We cannot vilify an entire civil rights movement because of the rioting or murders committed by a few.
And civilians might be wise adhering to Anderson’s safety tips. After all, you can’t advance civil rights if you don’t survive.
Video courtesy of Facebook.
Being against cops killing is not equal to being for killing cops. We need peace in our streets.
— John Legend (@johnlegend) July 8, 2016
One thing I'm struck by in aftermath of Sterling shooting is this: who can credibly tell black people they should ever trust in authorities?
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 6, 2016
I went to a meeting for two hours and came back to see the horror of Dallas.
God. If black men weren't targets already..
This is too much.— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) July 8, 2016
Featured image via Facebook screengrab.
