She lifted her shoulders and found herself unnaturally moving her arms and legs like a power walker.
In the midst of anxiety, the human resources employee benefits manager thought about what she would say if police stopped her and asked why she was in the neighborhood near the Beavercreek Walmart that she and her husband moved to in 2012.
“It didn’t really hit me until I got home that I was making all of these adjustments because I didn’t feel safe in my neighborhood,” Gordon, who is black, said. “It wasn’t because of crime being committed around me or because there were criminals. It was because someone could make a phone call, and that’s the end of your life.”
This fear that a police officer could misconstrue her motive for being in the neighborhood came days after news broke that 22-year-old John Crawford III of Fairfield was fatally shot by Beavercreek police after a 911 caller reported he was carrying what turned out to be a BB/pellet rifle in Beavercreek’s Walmart.
A Greene County grand jury did not indict the police officers involved in the Aug. 5 shooting that special prosecutor Mark Piepmeier called “tragic” and a “perfect storm of circumstances.” Walmart customer Angela Williams, 37, of Fairborn, also died inside the store from a health emergency.
The case is now being reviewed and investigated by federal agencies, including the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI.
The results of a recent poll by Rare, a Cox Media Group website based in Washington, D.C., showed that while 64 percent of white voters under age 40 said they trust their local police departments, only 46 percent of blacks said they felt the same way.
Thirty-six percent of blacks said they didn’t trust local police compared to 23 percent of whites, 22 percent of Hispanics and 18 percent of Asians.
The question on trust of local police was part of Rare’s first-of-its-kind poll that surveyed only respondents under 40. Questions were tailored to chart trends. About 550 respondents were interviewed between Aug. 11 and 18.
In a post, News Editor Matt Purple indicated that the numbers challenge "the consensus that emerged after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri" that there was an "outcry over law enforcement overreach."
Gordon on the other hand says the fact that more young black voters don’t trust police makes her sad.
The master’s of education student said she was raised on “Mr. Rogers” and the “Sesame Street” song “Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?
Gordon thought of police as people in a critical part of the neighborhood.
The daughter of a former pastor moved to the Dayton area in 2005 to find work and be closer to her parents.
With a 2-year-old daughter on their hands and hopes to grow their family, Gordon and her husband plan to soon be in the market for a house. She said it won’t be in Beavercreek.
The local musician said she and her husband picked an apartment in Beavercreek at the time because the community was quiet.
“We purposely moved to a place where we felt like we could go out and take walks at night or sit on the porch and it would be quiet, calm and peaceful and safe,” Gordon said. “It is safe from criminals. It is not safe from the police or people who exaggerate on 911 phone calls.”
While she said she no longer trusts officers as she once did, she still respects those who put their life on the line to protect and serve the community.
“But I do know that people are people and sometimes when people have power, they just don’t use it well,” she said.
Gordon said Crawford’s case and other recent highly publicized police shootings involving blacks — typically young black men — have changed her perception of police.
She said her brother has been questioned by Beavercreek police while walking in the past and her husband has been stopped in other areas, but the John Crawford case made “it real.”
“I don’t know if all of those things have always happened and we are just now hearing about it because of social media and the way information travels or if this is a new thing or if the world of policing is evolving into something big and scary,” she said. “Either way this needs to be addressed in some kind of way.”
Contact this blogger at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com or Twitter.com/DDNSmartMouth
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