‘I Am Trayvon’ After Run-in With Cop
By Michael Kaufman
Bennett Weiss wore an “I Am Trayvon” button when he joined fellow Newburgh residents and others at a rally in that city July 17 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Others in the crowd wore similar buttons, including young African American men around the same age as the unarmed 17-year-old shot and killed by Zimmerman in February 2012. For Weiss the button was a gesture of solidarity, one he says “had a little extra meaning” after an incident that occurred earlier that day.
He had driven his minivan to a remote parking lot of the heavily wooded Cronomer Hill Park, where he was about to walk his dog. “I had one shoe on,” he recalls, and he was bending down to put on the other one. At that moment a “very angry” Town of Newburgh police officer ordered him to get out of the car. “Put your hands on the side of the car. NOW!” yelled the cop. “What are you doing here?”
Weiss says he responded as calmly as he could despite the “infuriating” circumstances: “Why are you acting like this? I did nothing wrong.”
“What are you doing here?” repeated the cop in a tone Weiss remembers as “even harsher.” Although his brain screamed, “NONE OF YOUR @$$%^! BUSINESS,” Weiss explained that he was about to take his dog for a morning walk.
“He asked for my name and address and if I am the registered owner of the vehicle.” Then, Weiss says, the cop thundered, “What are you hiding in the car?”
“Nothing, officer, and I don’t appreciate being treated like this. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Get over there, lean against my car and don’t move.”
“He searched my car,” says Weiss. “He found nothing in it…. except my hard-to-miss 100- lb Newfoundland.”
“Why were you reaching under your seat as I pulled up?”
Weiss pointed to his one bare foot. “Uh, to get my shoes on. Did you happen to find a blue, size 13 sneaker?”
According to Weiss the officer gradually calmed down and explained that he was acting on orders from “the Chief” to crack down on suspicious characters in the park. He said several incidents of “public homosexual lewdness” were reported to have taken place on the grounds.
“After a while the officer explained that he had felt endangered by my bending over out of his sight. He said that for all he knew I had just robbed a bank and would as soon shoot him as go to jail. Aside from the fact that no reported bank heists had occurred that morning, even the dumbest bank robber wouldn’t make a minivan plastered with easily identifiable homemade bumper stickers his getaway car.” But Weiss says they parted amicably and he was able to clear his head “on a long hike with my best friend scampering about exploring the wonders of his far simpler world.” And then, Weiss says, it hit him:
“What if instead of my being a 64-year-old, grey bearded white guy with a big black dog, I had been an 18-year-old effeminate Black guy with a French poodle? Or a 27-year-old tattooed Latino with a pit bull? Or simply a person of color of any age? How much more threatened would this veteran officer of the law have felt?
“And what if instead of being a uniformed cop, he had been a ‘neighborhood watch’ wannabe? I surely would not have stood idly by and let him abuse me like that. I would not have been able to hold my tongue. Running at my age is not an option. I would have had no choice but to ‘stand my ground.’ And had I been shot dead, the ground stood would have been his.
“So, am I Trayvon? Do I have a right to wear that button? Yes. We all do. And the ground we must stand upon has not yet been reached, so we must keep marching till we reach the higher ground.”
Judging from some of the comments I’ve heard lately and recent letters to the editor I’ve read, we’ll be marching for a long while.
Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Bennett Weiss, George Zimmerman, Michael Kaufman, Trayvon Martin
July 30th, 2013 at 1:02 pm
Good message Mike, thanks. Alan Ginsberg hit the nail on the head with his 1967 quotation – “Paranoia walks the streets wearing blue uniforms”. As an aside, what the Travon Martin incident very clearly demonstrated is that any creep like Zimmerman can kill an African American man and be guaranteed a million dollar defense complete with world renowned ‘experts’ clamoring over each other to make a villain out of the victim and set the killer free. This is the same system that causes black men like Troy Davis to get killed by lethal injection for a crime many believe he did not commit following a mockery of a trial that was presided over by corrupt prosecutors and incompetent defense attorneys.Good message Mike, thanks. Alan Ginsberg hit the nail on the head with his 1967 quotation – “Paranoia walks the streets wearing blue uniforms”. As an aside, what the Travon Martin incident very clearly demonstrated is that any creep like Zimmerman can kill an African American man and be guaranteed a million dollar defense complete with world renowned ‘experts’ clamoring over each other to make a villain out of the victim and set the killer free. This is the same system that causes black men like Troy Davis to get killed by lethal injection for a crime many believe he did not commit following a mockery of a trial that was presided over by corrupt prosecutors and incompetent defense attorneys.