After a pair of journalists were arrested Wednesday in Ferguson, Mo., Nate Silver was inspired to recount his own brush with the law. But in the cold light of Thursday, the data journalist realized that wasn’t such a great idea.
In an eight-part series of tweets on Wednesday night, Silver recalled his arrest, which apparently occurred a couple years ago as he returned home from picking up his dinner.
The details of the arrest, he admitted, were fuzzy, but here’s the gist: Silver was handcuffed and sent to jail by some cops after he refused to leave the area near his home, but then he apologized after being locked up for an hour and the officers suddenly turned “super chill.” They even allowed him to eat his burrito in the cell and then gave him a ride home.
1. I got arrested once a couple years ago. Was two blocks from my apartment. It escalated fast & I don’t remember all details.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
2. Walking home after picking up dinner, saw an unmarked car who’d pulled someone over. Very unusual for my neighborhood. Stopped to watch.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
3. Men from the unmarked car noticed me watching, asked me to leave the scene. I asked them to ID themselves as police officers; they didn’t
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
4. I didn’t leave. Didn’t take long from there before there was a lot of yelling and swearing and me in handcuffs. They were pretty rough.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
5. The men never identified themselves as police. I wasn’t 100% sure they WERE police until we got to the precinct.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
6. After about an hour in jail, I’m like “sorry guys, was just stressed out and having a rough day … my bad!”
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
7. Cops suddenly get super chill. Gave me my take-out dinner (a burrito!) to eat in the cell. Let me out an hour later. Even drove me home.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
8. Funny now, but super frightening at the time. Everyone has their bad days. Not everyone has a legal monopoly on force.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
The story was not well-received.
“Nate Silver, a man frequently hailed as the future of journalism, gave a master class this evening on How Not To React To The News That Doesn’t Involve You (Ferguson edition),” wrote Gawker’s Michelle Dean. “In short, don’t make it an occasion to tell the story about That Time You Were Arrested (as a white man) and the cops were actually nice and let you eat a burrito.”
By the next day, a chastened Silver owned up to his “stupid set of tweets,” and promised a “longer response.”
1. Sent a stupid set of tweets last night about a run-in with cops I had a few years ago. Came across the opposite from how I’d intended.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
2. My story was so trivial as compared to the really awful, unacceptable shit that’s going down in Ferguson. I screwed up.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014
3. Working on a longer response, which I’ll post later.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 14, 2014