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85 UMKC L. Rev. 625 (2016-2017)
Resisting Arrest and Racism - The Crime of Disrespect

handle is hein.journals/umkc85 and id is 651 raw text is: 



  RESISTING ARREST AND RACISM - THE CRIME OF
                             DISRESPECT

                             Professor Scott Holmes*

        Maybe   all she had left
        when  her words ran out
        was  this smack of action.
        Maybe   her heart is a charred city,
        charmed  city
        Her  son, her last ember.
        We  take her footage into our
        eyes and mouths,  add our own
        soundtrack  and lean political.'

                     I. INTRODUCTION - JOHN HILL

        John  Hill is a poor black man, his body covered  in burn scars. He was
riding his bicycle down Alston Avenue  in Durham,  North Carolina to his job at a
convenience   store. As he  neared  the intersection at North  Carolina Central
University Law   School where  I teach, he saw the light was red. Having cycled
through  the intersection many times on his way to work, John timed his pedaling
perfectly so that the light turned green as he entered the intersection. A Durham
City  Police Officer, Officer Daniels, saw John  and initiated a traffic stop for
entering the intersection while the red light was still red. Officer Daniels was a
member of Durham's High Enforcement Abatement Team (HEAT)' charged
with drug  enforcement and investigations. He was not a regular traffic control or
patrol officer. Officer Daniels' job was handle crime 'hot spots,' and not issue
traffic tickets.' Officer Daniels exited his vehicle and violated protocol when he
did not have the audio microphone  running on  the recording equipment. But, the
video  dash cam  in his patrol vehicle captured the incident.' As Officer Daniels
approached  John, John  tried to explain that he did not run the red light. He told


* Scott Holmes is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University, where
he supervises the Civil Litigation Clinic and teaches classes. He graduated from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill for both Law School and undergraduate studies. He worked as a
public defender for a few years before entering private practice, where he handled court appointed
criminal cases in state and federal court, at trial and on appeal. He is grateful to his Criminal
Procedure class of 2016 for collecting data, his colleague professor Elizabeth McLaughlin Haddix
at the UNC Center for Civil Rights for invaluable guidance, critique, and editing for this article. He
is also grateful to all of the clients who permitted him to assist them in Court and tell their stories
here.
I DERRICK WESTON BROWN, Mother to Son. 2015. Baltimore, in RESISTING ARREST: POEMS TO
STRETCH THE SKY (Tony Medina ed., 2016).
2 District 1, DURHAM NORTH CAROLINA, https://durhamnc.gov/200/District-1
3 Id.
4 To watch the video of John Hill's arrest, see Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Excessive
Force by Durham PD, YouTube (Jun. 12, 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v-QunwfEE-
MmE

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