TRAP FOR SPEED OR FOR RACE?
Black Virginians say they’ve been racially profiled in and around Windsor for decades
The video of Windsor Police drawing guns on Caron Nazario before pepper spraying him may have gone viral, but it wasn’t a surprise to some Black people who drive up and down U.S. Route 460 between Suffolk and Petersburg.
Many who use the route to travel from Hampton Roads to Virginia State University said they expect to get pulled over on the pretext of speeding or tinted windows.
They say the real reason is because they are Black.
Watching the video, they thought, “That could have been my dad. That could have been my daughter. That could have been me.”
Eight Black current and former VSU students and faculty gave The Virginian-Pilot accounts of being targeted while driving
between Suffolk and Petersburg. They say it’s been common knowledge for decades at VSU that if you travel through the area, you’ll be stopped on a claim of speeding or a minor infraction, then get harassed by police.
Nicole Papillion traveled that road with her parents in the late 1980s and early ‘90s while attending VSU. They taught her to watch out for police in the three W’s — Windsor, Wakefield and Waverly.
And when her daughter got a car while attending the historically Black university in the 2010s, Papillion said she and her ex-husband had a talk with her about driving that stretch of 460.
“Her dad always told her, no loud music, don’t be on her cellphone. Call us when you get where you’re going. If you ever get stopped, call us,” Papillion said.
Sure enough, just after giving her daughter the car in 2013, Papillion received a call. She listened intently as her scared daughter was stopped for tinted windows, though Papillion insists the tint was legal.
The area is a known speed trap, but it’s not the same for Black people, Papillion said.
“It felt like they were picking and targeting because we are Black,” she said.
About 20% of Virginia’s 8.5 million residents are Black, but in Wakefield, Waverly and Windsor the percentage of cases involving Black people that land in General District Court, where speeding tickets and minor traffic citations are heard, is far higher. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, they accounted for at least 40% of the district court cases where those towns are listed as the location, according to an analysis of Virginia court data available through Virginiacourtdata.org.
The Virginian-Pilot sent an inquiry about the data and this story to town officials and police departments that patrol the stretch of 460, including Windsor Police and the Isle of Wight Sheriff ’s Office.
Joel Rubin, hired by Windsor to do communications work, called a Pilot reporter and questioned the veracity of the data and the timing of the story.
The city later sent a lengthy response through Saunders questioning the timing of the story, saying they could not provide a cogent response and criticizing the source of the data, which has been used frequently by Virginia journalists and in an award-winning series by Kaiser Health News.
“It’s almost like Green Book, in a way,” Zoe Spencer, an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at VSU, said of driving through the area if you’re Black.
In the Oscar-winning movie “Green Book,” which is based on a true story, classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley hires Italian American bouncer Frank Vallelonga to drive him to gigs in the South in the early 1960s because the roads weren’t safe for Black people to travel alone.
“When I moved here from D.C., I was told about the corridor. Our students know about the corridor. Faculty know about the corridor,” Spencer said. “It’s become this natural phenomenon, that we know what’s going to happen. We expect it to happen.
“We follow the rules, and still you get stopped. And then you’re at the mercy of the police.”
On 460, Black people know that they have to be careful, they have to drive very slowly, she said.
“We as African Americans have traditionally acquiesced to the racial power dynamics that are displayed throughout policing on 460,” she said. “And while I believe Lt. Nazario’s situation was absolutely egregious, I would hypothesize that he is in no way the only one that experienced that kind of treatment.”
Brandon Randleman, a political activist and Windsor native, said he’s grown up hearing Black people worry about driving through Windsor, Wakefield and Waverly.
It was something he heard about over and over as president of VSU’s student government.
“If my music is a little bit too loud, if I have a certain type of rim, there’s a strong possibility you’re going to be stopped,” he said.
Stacey Jennings said she’s been stopped countless times on the road since attending VSU in 2007. Jennings said she’s gay and is often mistaken for a Black man.
She said one officer who had pulled her over told her, “If I’m being quite honest, you fit the stereotype of a criminal.” She was wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts.
“You kind of start to buy into this idea that they have reasons, that you are a bad person just based off of the information and responses they give you,” she said.
Jennings said at times she made her girlfriend at the time, who was lighter skinned, drive.
She doesn’t drive the road anymore, but she says traveling on 460 taught her some lessons.
“The other day, I was in the car and an officer pulled up beside me, and I’m just smiling for no reason so that they could pick up that I’m friendly,” she said.
RaQuia King remembers driving back to school one night in her brother’s car. He was asleep in the back seat when she came across road work near Windsor. She said she was driving slowly because of all the flashing lights and the road being reduced to one lane when she was pulled over.
When the officer came to her window, he had one question, “Is there a reason you’re driving slow?” he asked. The officer said he had a right to pull her over because he thought she was under the influence.
King says she immediately volunteered to take a breathalyzer test.
“And I explained to him, it’s hard to drive the speed limit when you can’t see,” she said.
The officer got angry at her and gave her a ticket for the tint on the windows.
Another time she was stopped for speeding on 460, she decided to fight the reckless driving ticket in court. The judge ultimately put a restriction on her license that allowed her to drive during the daytime so she could drive to and from school.
The officer who gave her the ticket showed up outside the courthouse. She says he intended to arrest her if she got into her car, thinking her license had been suspended. She said she’s avoided the road and taken the longer route on Interstate 64 ever since.
Papillion said one of the last times she drove U.S. 460 was in 2016, after she helped pack her daughter’s belongings at the end of VSU’s school year to move back to Suffolk.
The two were driving separate cars when about halfway home, Papillion saw police lights as her daughter was being pulled over.
She said she pulled over too and got out to ask why her daughter was being stopped. The officer threatened to arrest her if she didn’t get back in the car.
She got back in her car and watched fearfully as her daughter was questioned again about her tinted windows. She had the receipt and didn’t get a ticket.
“The officer came over and talked to me and said, ‘Well you were interfering.’ I said, ‘But that’s my child.’ ”
Papillion said her son will probably start college next year at VSU and she worries about what will happen as he drives to and from classes through Waverly, Wakefield and Windsor.
“That’s the one fear that I have,” she said, “because he’s a 6-foot-something Black young man.”