Chapter 4 #4
Sheriff’s Department’s Racially Biased Traffic Stops: New Ithaca Trend?
“I knew it. I fucking knew this would happen,” I said through gritted teeth. Cindy looked at the phone and sighed.
Ron gave her a hard look and took his phone back. “We need to do something. Day clearly has not dealt with this at all if it happened again in less than two weeks.”
I ran my hands over my head, intensely aware that Cindy had so far not said a word.
“Cin, go to the gym. I’ll deal with this.” My tone was sharp, but I was starting to run out of patience at how nonchalant she was being. Were we supposed to just let this escalate and do nothing?
“Do not do anything impulsive, Easton.”
That one hurt, because even if in my personal life I was a bit reactive, I never ever did anything that could hurt my work.
But again, she was the boss, not me. “I will be cautious of how I approach this, but I need to sit down with Day. By this point, I was mostly talking to Ron. “I’m still convinced there is a way to address this without blowing everything up.”
She looked from me to Ron, who looked like he was actively trying not to punch a wall.
“Fine. I need to get out of here before I break all the promises I made to Lorraine about taking it easy. Please do not make any statements on behalf of this office until we’ve spoken with Day.
Again, these are routine traffic stops.”
Ron scoffed at that, earning an unfriendly look from Cindy.
“You’re entitled to your opinion, Ron, but while you are speaking for this office, you will refrain from making statements about the sheriff’s department’s actions.
” I squeezed the back of my neck hard, hoping this didn’t turn into a shouting match, but after a moment, Ron nodded.
“Yes ma’am, but it’s not my imagination that this sudden hike in stops of black and brown kids is a very concerning trend.”
Cindy stopped at the door and sighed again. “We agree on that.” She turned to me. “Easton, set up a meeting with Day. We need to at least hear from him about what the fuck he’s planning to do with these little assholes.”
Ron cracked a smile at that, and I waved her off. “I’ll call Day, and this time he’s going to have to talk to me.” With that, Cindy walked out. I turned to look at Ron who had his phone screen practically pressed to his face.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” I asked, as I moved over to see what he was looking at with a weird mix of dread and delight.
“Look at this.”
He handed me his phone. I wasn’t really on social media, so when I saw Patrice’s face in the tiny circle on the left side of the screen, my heart started pounding. His handle was @AyitienProf and his tweet with a timestamp from ten minutes ago was incendiary.
Fuck.
Young black and brown men continue to be harassed on the roads of this county as they try to work and study.
Those of you who are responsible for putting a stop to this: do your jobs. We’re waiting.
“What is this?”
Ron looked at me like I needed to get with the program.
“That’s Patrice Denis, he’s—”
“I know who he is, Ron! I’m just asking what that tweet is about. I mean obviously it’s about the stops, but— You know what? Never mind. I get it.”
Ron seemed a bit put off by my outburst, but he just talked over me.
“You need to get on Threads. Denis is pretty well known on Black Threads”
“What?”
Ron sighed and I couldn’t tell if he was losing his patience or just felt sorry for my lack of social media prowess.
“It is not a separate Threads, it’s just there are a lot of writers, journalists, academics, or just people who tweet about racial justice and Denis has been pretty active in the past couple of years.
He has a big following, and he does not mince words.
He was pretty vocal about some of the stuff happening in New York City when he was down there, and it looks like he’s not shutting down his account now that he’s up here.
” He sounded a little bit too giddy at that prospect as my own mood sank some more.
Excellent.
Looked like this would put even the possibility of friendship out the window.
And how unprofessional was that? I needed to be thinking about how to deal with a situation that was escalating, not how I would stay friends with Patrice.
I handed Ron his phone back and went back to my desk.
“If Day doesn’t take my call, I’m going to go see him.
I’m not impressed at all with his ghosting us.
” Day and I had worked together for years and he was usually a reliable guy, or at least honest about what he could and could not do.
This disappearing act was extremely concerning and not a good look.
Ron nodded as he moved to the door. “I’ll do a little more digging around and ask the IPD guys what they’ve heard of who’s being problematic. I’ll call up Tony, too.”
Tony was a deputy sheriff we worked closely with on our sexual abuse cases and he was definitely going to have some insight on what was going on.
“That sounds good. Thanks. I hope we can deal with this before it happens again.”
The look he gave me clearly said, “You and me both.”