National Journal - Scott was headed to the city in an unmarked car on Olive Boulevard, a road that many African-Americans avoid because it connects dozens of suburbs where police racially profile drivers. In Ladue, Scott saw a pickup truck swerving and then watched it make a left turn on a red light. Afraid that the driver was drunk, Scott called police and said he would follow the truck until officers arrived.
The truck pulled into a gas station, and Scott got out of his car and announced that he was a police officer. The man ran into the station's convenience store. Two local police officers then arrived and went straight to Scott, pushing him to the ground and pointing a gun at him. Scott said he put his hands in the air, told them he was an undercover county police officer, and said he had a revolver in one pocket, and his police identification in the other. They took the gun, he said, but ignored his pleas to get the ID from his pocket. He kept telling them the drunk driver was inside.
"They weren't worried about him; they were worried about me," says Scott.
The officers eventually arrested the other driver, who was white, but they didn't apologize or thank Scott, he says. Furious, Scott filed a complaint with the town's police department and with his own department. Nothing came of it, he says.
That was the wake-up call.
"I realized that it doesn't mean a damn thing if you're black and you have a badge. I was still just a black man," he says.
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