The right profile

Iwas in my early 30s. I still had some hair left on the top of my head and my blond, curly mop reached my collar. I’d been playing basketball in a local gym that night and was driving south in my crappy car near the hospital in an Imperial Valley town that starts with the letter B.

I saw a police car blue light in my rearview mirror. I pulled over, thinking the officer was turning on his light to pursue someone else.

I was wrong.

The officer walked up to my rolleddown driver-side window. He asked for my registration and driver’s license. While I was searching through my always-messy glove compartment for the registration he asked, “Why are you so sweaty?”

I turned back to him and said, “I’ve been playing basketball.”

“You don’t look like a basketball player,” he sneered.

I chose to ignore the obvious provocation. I pointed at my high-tops, smiled, said, “Basketball shoes” and returned to looking for the registration. I found it and handed it to him.

“What is that?” he said as he pointed at the half-empty can I’d been drinking from that looked suspiciously like a 40-ounce Miller High Life.

I reached for the can and held it up. “Arizona Ice Tea” I responded while flashing a winning smile.

“Get out of the car, smart-ass,” he responded.

I was told to walk to the back of my car, which I did. I was frisked and told to keep my hands on the trunk while the officer checked the status of my registration, insurance and driver’s license… and probably whether I had warrants. After several minutes, the officer walked back to me and handed me my paperwork.

“Leave,” was his one-word directive, and that’s what I did.

A few months later, I was returning through the Nogales Port of Entry after spending 10 days in Baja California. I hadn’t shaved in at least a week. I was deeply tanned, for me anyway, and my hair was even longer than it had been when I’d been stopped by the local officer in the Valley. To top it off, I was wearing a funky straw hat I’d bought on a Mexican beach.

After a few questions, the Customs officer said, “Drive into that lane.”

Yes, I was being sent into the secondary inspection area. When I reached a certain spot, another officer told me to get out of my car and go sit in a building, which I did for about 90 minutes while my car was searched. At one point an officer walked in and said, “Do you have a gun permit?” to which I responded, “No, because I don’t have a gun.” He looked at me blankly and walked away.

I eventually was released, but I realized I was being profiled in such stops. I was a scruffy, sweaty long-haired white guy in his early 30s who officers thought probably was carrying meth, smack, coke, or at least weed. This kind of stuff stopped as I got older, grayer and started cutting my hair shorter … and stayed white.

Don’t get me wrong. I like cops. I have many friends who are or were police officers. If I were a young black or Latino male, however, and felt I was being stopped by officers frequently because of my color, sex and age, I would get fed up pretty quickly.

I know if I had been even slightly contentious in either of those situations, things probably would have gotten worse rapidly. And while my run-ins happened 30 years ago, I don’t think things have gotten better when it comes to profiling certain young males.

We may be distracted by COVID, Ukraine and inflation right now, but this issue is going to continue to resurface, because we don’t seem to be even working toward a solution.