Police Hold ‘Extraordinary’ Power In Traffic Stops, Law Professor Says : NPR
NPR
Attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the Wright family, said in a separate interview earlier this week that Daunte Wright "was doing, like most marginalized minorities, trying to run away and get away from the police because Black men in particular are afraid when the police interacts with them because it normally ends up in bad results."
Butler, who is Black, says he too is constantly afraid of being confronted by police.
"Any Black person who is aware of the news, who knows history, has to be anxious around the police," Butler says. "I'm older. I'm a professional. I'm law-abiding. Whenever I see a cop car behind me, my heart starts beating faster. I don't go to places late at night where I'd have to drive and be on a lonely road where I might be pulled over. I don't want to take the risk."
He argues, "if you don't immediately stop ... in addition to whatever traffic infraction, you're committing contempt of cop. And bad officers will make you pay for that. ... It's so arbitrary and so that police officers who are racist or biased, they have so much power."