I don't have any answers or suggestions or even a conclusion beyond "we're doomed", but something happened to a guy that reminded me of something and I thought the contrast was worth sharing.

I fit the description….

Now me, I'm a largish white male. I could easily be detained for matching the description Mr. Locke gave of a couple of the LEOs. My brother, as tall as me, as broad shouldered, not as overweight, went through something like this, twice since he got off drugs. I don't ask him questions about the time before, much. I don't like those stories.

When he worked for mom, he often stayed at the office after hours. The place he lived, seven miles from town, had pretty useless internet connectivity, and he was playing some DoD. It was after 8pm. Being back in our hometown was stressful for him, and playing video games until he was mindlessly exhausted was one thing that helped him get through some days without much test of his sobriety. On the day in question, someone else had worked until maybe 6, and left without locking up. He'd never gotten around to getting up and locking it. Sometimes, when you're playing something like DoD, you get into a good group, and you don't want to take time to do much of anything for fear of losing your spot. It's sort of like pick up basketball in that way.

The police in our hometown - and I assume this is probably a kind of standard thing, it makes sense as a method of preventing callouts in the AM - will go around to some of the local businesses and check doors. They'll call the owner if a door isn't locked. Once, when I worked for a local computer repair shop, with the same sort of internet connectivity issues at home, I was at work late playing probably TFC or Diablo II, when they opened the door and pointed their service weapons at me. I completely froze. They asked who I was, I gave (apparently) good answers, maybe one of them recognized me since we did computer work for law enforcement and the county and etc, and they told me to come lock the door as they left. I had to kind of run laps around the office for a few minutes after that, to try to calm myself, burn off some of the adrenaline, that sort of thing, but it was over in ... 30 seconds, probably.

By his description, my brother was not as "calm" (frozen in fear) as I was. He wasn't in the LEO's immediate line of sight when they opened the door, and probably came out of his office angrily, without realizing who was coming into work this goddamn late, we're closed, and there's no reason for staff to be here. He sat on the curb outside in cuffs for an hour while they tried to get in touch with mom or someone else who could verify who he was. She was probably up in Montana at the cabin. Her mobile phone doesn't work well up in the hills, and none of us had memorized the home phone number by then. He had a key to the office door, obviously, and ID, and passwords to any computer they'd have asked about. He could have shown them where absolutely anything was, there in the office. But he sat in cuffs for an hour, on the curb outside the office.

The second time was different, and maybe closer to Mr. Locke's situation.

In January 2007, our baby brother died in a single car rollover. He was 30 or so; "baby" is because he's the youngest brother and he's gone and we miss him. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, and was ejected after what looks like trying to dodge a cat or something and going over a dropoff that caused his pickup to tumble. The accident took place about 5 miles out of town, in a rural area. Maybe he'd have gotten help sooner if he'd been in town, but there's no real indication it would have helped.

At some point, the brother who is the subject of this post drove out and parked near where our baby brother left the road. It was a chilly night, and he'd worn a hooded sweatshirt. He turned off his truck and put his hood up, to stay warm, and to mourn in silence. A few minutes later, he was accosted by law enforcement. There had been a break-in nearby, and the assailant had been wearing a hoodie. My brother explained about our baby brother's death, why he was there, etc. At one point, the sheriff's deputy recognized my brother from high school, and for a moment, my brother thought the ordeal would be over then. Eventually, the LEOs got some sort of confirmation or other and left.

In each of three cases rattling through my mind right now, the LEOs were probably following procedure. Since there were happy endings for all three, that's the end of the discussion, right? Justice was serviced? I mean, Steve Locke isn't as recognizable as ... Will Smith, or Chris Rock (though reportedly both of those major celebrities have been pulled over and/or detained for "matching the description", or "being a black man in a nice car", so I don't know how relevant it is, who he is. My brother knew the one guy from high school, and didn't get better treatment as a result. There was never a question of who my brother was, just whether he was "the guy who did it"). In each case, they detained the suspect person until they received confirmation they were looking for someone else, and in a vacuum, that seems like a reasonable procedure.

But my brother, he never talked about feeling like his life was in danger. He was angry, sure, and stressed, and experienced the fight/flight reaction, but he never, ever talked about thinking he might die. He knew that his time was being wasted by asshole cops who were going to let him go when they eventually figured out they had the wrong guy. He knew this. This is how he tells those stories, including the first time he told them to me, minutes after they were over.

I'm not convinced that the institutional racism people talk so much about is quite what so many think it is. I think the situation is a lot more complex than US law enforcement being racist, even when the individual LEOs are not. But the difference in the incidents described by Mr. Locke and my brother indicate that there is a serious divide of some kind.

One of my favorite authors, Steven Brust, is a socialist. He says that racism is one of the things that the rich class uses to keep the working class divided. Scott Adams would scoff at the idea of "the rich class" being organized enough to put something like that together, and at the second idea that "the rich class" would take time from their busy schedules of making money to put something like that together.

Ultimately, I think the problem is this: human society is a complex melange of assholes and opinions. If we were all nicer to one another, things would be better, but I don't believe that will happen before the heat death of the universe, so, yeah. We're doomed.

this is why I have trust issues

There was this little girl working for me, up until about 45 days ago. She worked here for 9, 10 months. I forget exactly.We had a lot in common in terms of attitudes about things. She did her job, and when she complained about boys I made suggestions that she said were helpful.

I maybe had a bit of a crush on her, but I wouldn't ever act on that kind of thing. I think I may have been a little more lax on certain things, but she was a big help always, and I seldom had to ask for something twice.

She got a job working accounts payable at a hardware store locally. Better pay, benefits (long story, but we can't do benefits yet. We're hoping...), less stupidity. I don't blame her for jumping.

She asked to leave with just one week notice. She found her own replacement in a "friend" from grade school that she promised to train. Said she would come back a couple of weekends and help her friend get up to speed on certain aspects of the job. She said she would come back for the first of February to train her friend further on billing. Obviously we would pay her for any time she spent training or etc.

Haven't seen her. Haven't gotten a text message. The last two times that I've seen her were at the paint store, and at the sushi place, accidental run-ins.