A woman called the police on Oregon state representative Janelle Bynum (D) as she was canvassing in a neighborhood in her district, according to Bynum’s Tuesday Facebook post.
“Big shout out to Officer Campbell who responded professionally to someone who said that I was going door to door and spending a lot of time typing on my cell phone after each house — aka canvassing and keeping account of what my community cares about!” Bynum wrote in her post.
The legislator said she asked the policeman to connect her to the person, whose race is unknown, who called 911. Bynum wrote that “the officer called her, we talked and she did apologize.”
Later, Bynum told the Oregonian that while she understood the woman’s concern, “when people do things like this, it can be dangerous for people like me.”
In several recent incidents, bystanders have called the police to report on black people engaging in innocuous activities including holding a barbecue in a public park, waiting in a Starbucks, and, in the case of one eight-year-old girl, selling water.
Read Bynum’s full post below:
Live from the mean streets of Clackamas!!! Big shout out to Officer Campbell who responded professionally to someone who…
Posted by Janelle Bynum on Tuesday, July 3, 2018
WTF is it with white women going batshit crazy? I’m a white woman. I don’t clutch my pearls at the sight of a person of color. Do I lack the scared shitless gene?
Seems to be an epidemic of these incidents recently. Is there really an increase, or is there just more reporting?
And if it is an increase, is there any chance it’s coordinated?
This has always been happening. The only difference now is we have cameras on our phones. What makes me even more concerned is how much this kind of behavior is a factor in other aspects of life such as employment, housing, education, etc.
Yes, because when people are casing a neighborhood to rob, they go door-to-door asking people questions and typing on their cell phone. Makes sense. There’s probably an app for this.
Honestly though, the main thing about all these encounters is for cops to learn that a 911 call isn’t always real. These things are so much worse when the cops make assumptions and start pointing guns, making threats, and roughly arresting people without even asking questions. This is obviously due to poor training, yet most police departments support it because they were trained badly too.
At some point we’re going to admit that giving humans almost unlimited power and assuming they always tell the truth might not have been the best idea. Who knew?
I read that harassment of black BBQ-ers in Oakland has been going on for a long time.
These stories don’t give me a lot of confidence about the white women voting bloc turning out strongly for Dems.