Black Student at University of Virginia Law School Lies About the Police; UVa Blames the Police
(Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the Political Cesspool Website. See here.)
On April 22, 2011, the Virginia Law Weekly published a letter to the editor written by Johnathan Perkins, a law student at the University of Virginia (UVa). In his letter, Perkins, who is black, describes an encounter he had, in which he claims he was sorely harassed by two White university police officers. Perkins’s description reads like the script of a made-for-TV movie:
I noticed a police car approaching me. As it neared, the squad car slowed down, blue lights flashing. One of the officers inside pointed the car’s spotlight on me. The UVA officers (both white) stopped their car, got out and confronted me. They demanded that I provide identification and I complied. When I asked the officers if there was a problem, one responded, “You fit the description of someone we’re looking for.” I asked what the description was and what had happened. One of the officers responded, “You don’t need to worry about that. . .” It was clear at that point that the officers were toying with me for their own entertainment. [I]informed them that I was a law student, they looked at one another and sarcastically said, “Oh, he’s a law student. . .” [H]aving just taken Criminal Procedure, I knew to ask the officer whether I was free to leave. When he responded, “We just need to make sure you’re not carrying any weapons . . . it’ll only take a second.” I was doubly surprised: the officers had all but expressed that I was not the person they were looking for (if such a person even existed), yet the two were about to subject me to a search. I knew that all the cases, regulations, and remedies that I learned in class would be of no avail. These two officers alone controlled my fate.
At that point, one of the officers spun me around, pushed me toward their car, and placed my hands on the rear of the vehicle. . .One of the officers searched me, removing all of my belongings from my pockets. The other officer then proceeded to rifle through my wallet . . .Whenever I attempted to turn to answer their questions, they forcibly turned me back around to face the car. When their questioning ended, I asked the officers for their names and badge numbers. One of them responded, “You don’t need to worry about that either. . .” I knew that there would be no remedy for the indignity that I suffered at the hands of two of the University of Virginia’s “finest.”
This was not the first time that I have been harassed by police officers and it will not be the last. As I stood there, humiliated, with my hands on the police car, my only thought was: “There is nothing I can do to right this wrong. I have absolutely no recourse.”







