Thread by @ichigoblack

I had my first panic attack in front of a cop.

He'd asked a group of kids on the street to go home after a fight. My friends and I were off to the side, standing away from the crowd, silent and still, in a city we didn't know, waiting to be picked up by my parents 1/13

This was over 10 years ago, before parents consistently owned cell phones. We couldn't "go home" as instructed. But instead of listening to me as I tried to explain, the officer sprayed the area in front of us with pepper spray as well.

My friends moved back several yards. 2/13

Breathing had never hurt before. My brain couldn't process why that was no longer true. Logically I understood it was because of the pepper spray. But as I saw everyone else moving while I couldn't, I thought maybe it was affecting me differently, and that maybe I was dying. 3/13

I kept trying to say I thought I was dying, but it hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk, so I was really just babbling gibberish and flapping my hands near my mouth and throat.

This made the officer even more angry. He got in my face and yelled for me to go home. 4/13

My friends knew I wouldn't comply. I couldn’t.

I was in distress.

But he didn't care.

One of my friends put herself between me and the officer because to her, someone needed to protect me if I couldn't protect myself. Yes, she yelled in his face. 5/13

But it was so she could be heard over him yelling in her face. She tried to tell him that if we left we'd have no way of getting home.

Instead of listening, the cop chucked her hard. She fell on the hood of a nearby car, then the ground and started convulsing. 6/13

I thought we were both going to die.

An ambulance was called by a bystander, not the police, and they checked my friend out. After ten minutes, they said her vitals were good, but she should really go to a hospital to be sure. 7/13

My parents arrived and found an ambulance and three cop cars. No one but the paramedics would talk to them.

The officers refused to give their names or badge numbers.

They eventually told them to take us home and that we really shouldn't be standing around at night. 8/13

My parents were furious, as any parents would have been, so they drove to the police station while we waited in the car.

After a half hour they returned, angry and sad and defeated and every emotion you could possibly imagine. 9/13

They were told they could not file a police report because there was nothing to report.

They were told that we should have vacated the area once given the order to do so. 10/13

They were told that everything that happened was our fault.

They were told that the lives of the traumatized black kids crying in the car didn't matter.

So they took us home. 11/13

Writing this was hard. I had to take several breaks.

But I pushed through because yesterday I realized there are white people out there who think black people wouldn't have a problem with police if they stopped being criminals. 12/13

I am not a criminal.

This incident was never reported. It was never filmed. How many more stories are there like this that no one cared enough to listen to? 13/13

#bvm #blm