James Blackwell, Ball State men’s golf grad assistant
There’s obviously sadness because of the tragedy that happened and the tragedy that seems to continue to be going on, going back decades on decades on decades ago. Frustration on a couple of different platforms. One frustration with – I’d say the best I can put it is – a lack of understanding from people as to what is going on. Even some people I consider to be friends. I’ll get on Twitter and I’ll see the things they are either tweeting or retweeting or liking and I’m like, ‘Wow, you guys really don’t understand what this is all about.’
Another platform of frustration – this has been going on in police departments for a long time and seemingly nothing has happened. People say, well, you have bad apples in every grouping of individuals. But I’ve seen some pretty great quotes on social media regarding that and it’s like, can you have a bad apple if it’s a pilot for an airplane? You don’t want to have a bad apple there.
My mother was a CEO of a hospital in the city of Buffalo, New York, and my father was a politician. I’ve just grown up around all different types of individuals, and I’ve had the utmost respect for police officers since a very young age. I’ve played golf with police officers. I’m good friends with a lot of police officers, and they deserve a lot of credit for the things that they go through on a day-to-day basis. But I have had numerous situations in my life where I’m like, man, I’m in a bad spot now.
I was just walking home to my parents’ house one night. I was probably 12 years old and I had an undercover cop pull me over and question me about why I was in the neighborhood and where I was going.
I was at my parents’ house – they live out in the suburbs now – I had just gotten back from college during Christmas break. We have a detached garage, and I was in the driveway maybe grabbing my backpack or something. It was 8:30 p.m., and a cop came bolting around the corner, pulled into the drive and put the high beams on. I’m like man, this is not it. The first comment he said was, “You’re not about to take off on me, are you?” That’s a great start. He proceeded with, “What are you doing here?” Even after I answered all of his questions about the house, he still wasn’t satisfied that I belonged on the property and asked to see my license. “So you mean to tell me that your parents live in this house?” I’m like, that is exactly what I’m saying.
It’s pitch black, I don’t think anybody was at the house at the time, anything could’ve happened then and there. I made sure my hands were visible, and what else can you do? It didn’t escalate. He was like, “Sorry, you’re good to go,” which in and of itself is another can of worms. Why did I look suspicious? But for a lot of other individuals, that situation escalates to something else.
All of a sudden I’m getting detained or a baton to the head or I’m getting tased or even worse, I’m getting shot and killed or choked out. Situations like that, that’s a bad apple. And what are we doing with the bad apples?