Who remebers them?
They were in June of 2003. An african american motorcyclist was being chased by caucasion police officers. The motorcyclist was going very fast, and quite a ways over the speed limit. Anyways, he hit a curb and was sent flying into a building. This sparked riots in Benton Harbor MI that lasted a couple nights.
Does anyone remember these? What do you remember of these?
Just in case any one was wondering, I live only 15 minutes from where the riots where. And every Wednesday I go and help tutor kids at an after school program right where the riots where.
Here are some links.
What a sucky series of events. A reminder of the LA riots over Rodney King, and the Detroit riots of 1967. “We’re pissed off because our neighborhood and standard of living are so poor. Our neighborhood needs help. So let’s set it on fire!”
Not to make light of such things. I have seen how they can happen. There was a good quote at the end of the second linked article: “Nothing good ever comes out of a high-speed pursuit … It’s unfortunate the man lost his life, but there is enough blame to go around here.”
Yeah. You want to stop a guy who’s speeding, because the farther he goes the more he puts people (including himself but mostly others) at risk. But if you chase him and he chooses not to stop, the distance covered will be greater, and the risk all around will be multiplied as all the chasers raise the danger level with their added kinetic energy.
Reports that one of the police cars nudged the motorcycle are probably false, but that doesn’t matter once rumors start to spread and the characters in the play have the right colors of skin. I’ve never seen a police pursuit where they tried to get next to the person, except to spin out cars (PIT maneuver). This doesn’t work with a motorcycle. But you also would never try such a thing at 100mph, especially in a town.
Why didn’t the guy stop? Probably the same reason as in most high-speed pursuits, he got all charged with adrenaline and afraid to be caught. “Thinking
it through” seems to take a back seat under such circumstances. I highly doubt it was because he was afraid of the whiteness of the officers. In fact, nothing in either article explained any racial motives, and I doubt there were any. Just color. Everybody discriminated. Unfortunately you can’t judge a poor person by their skin color…
Well, One thing I have to say, is that the news stations played it way up to be alot more than it was. It was not as bad as it seemed from just watching the news. The only good part about it is that they only burned down vacant buildings.