‘Black Nonsense’: Pennsylvania State Police Says Its Officers Did Not Racially Profile Black Driver

Pennsylvania State Police, inves­ti­gat­ing one of their own for alle­ga­tions of racial bias, have (sur­prise!) cleared them­selves of any wrong­do­ing.
The inci­dent in ques­tion took place on July 8, when two white state troop­ers pulled over Rodney Gillespie’s car after he briefly crossed over the cen­ter lines of a nar­row, wind­ing two-lane road.

After state police turned on their lights, Gillespie drove one more minute down the road before turn­ing into the dri­ve­way of his home. The rea­son, Gillespie told police at the time, and to BuzzFeed News lat­er, was because he feared what pulling over on an unlit road with no passers­by would beget.

“I knew my house was lit with lights,” Gillespie told BuzzFeed News last week. “What oth­er place do you think is safer than your house?”

Dashcam footage of the event released by police last Friday shows troop­er Christopher S. Johnson, a recent police acad­e­my grad, bark­ing at Gillespie to get out of the car. He ques­tioned the 52-year-old phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal exec­u­tive about why he hadn’t pulled over sooner.

“This is a small street, I didn’t want to get killed,” he responds. When Johnson says the offi­cers’ hearts were rac­ing because Gillespie had con­tin­ued dri­ving, he con­tin­ues, “you all kill black peo­ple, I didn’t want to get killed.”

“You want to know how to get hurt? Not stop­ping for police. You’re run­ning,” Johnson replies. When Gillespie explains that he was “just scared,” Johnson takes offense.

“Listen, one of my best friends, that’s a troop­er that works with me, is black. I don’t want to hear that black non­sense,” the troop­er says.

The two offi­cers end up hand­cuff­ing Gillespie for sev­er­al min­utes before giv­ing him a traf­fic ticket.

While Pennsylvania State Police found troop­ers “could have more effec­tive­ly deesca­lat­ed the sit­u­a­tion” once Gillespie had pulled over, the agency found the com­plaint of bias-based pro­fil­ing “was not sus­tained,” accord­ing to a state­ment released last Friday. State police also point­ed out that the offi­cers’ micro­phones were turned off at sev­er­al points dur­ing the inci­dent — a vio­la­tion of police protocol.

Watching video of the inci­dent, Gillespie point­ed out to BuzzFeed News two note­wor­thy state­ments offi­cers made that were not picked up by their microphones:

The first was that police said they fol­lowed him when he passed their car because of recent break-ins. The sec­ond was that offi­cers asked him who his “girl­friends” were, refer­ring to his wife Angela and his 17-year-old daugh­ter Jaida, who was sleep­ing in the back seat (his elder daugh­ter Jasmyn, 22, was not in the car). 

“As an African-American, as a man, try­ing to take care of his fam­i­ly, I felt like there was a lit­tle bit of … [police offi­cers] try­ing to egg me on, emas­cu­lat­ing me, right in front of my fam­i­ly,” Gillespie said. In a sep­a­rate inter­view with ABC fol­low­ing the agency’s deci­sion, Gillespie said he plans on suing the state police to force changes through.

“This has nev­er been about me. It’s about mak­ing sure it doesn’t hap­pen to oth­ers,” Gillespie said.

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer inves­ti­ga­tion found Pennsylvania state police offi­cers — 92 per­cent of whom are white — had received 32 com­plains of racial bias since 2016. The depart­ment has cleared every sin­gle offi­cer in that time of any wrong­do­ing. This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed here; https://​www​.the​root​.com/​b​l​a​c​k​-​n​o​n​s​e​n​s​e​-​p​e​n​n​s​y​l​v​a​n​i​a​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​a​y​s​-​i​t​s​-​o​f​f​i​-​1​8​3​8​3​7​3​754