On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (12 page)

Child Custody Threats

Another tactic that the police use to persuade women to talk is to threaten to take
away their children. When the police raided Mike’s neighbor’s house, they told his
wife that if she didn’t explain where to find him, they’d call Child Protective Services
and report that the windows were taped up with trash bags, that the heat had been
cut
off and the open stove was being used as a furnace, and that her children were sleeping
on the sofa. Officers also found marijuana and a crack pipe in the house. If she continued
to be uncooperative, this evidence would build a powerful case for child neglect and
unfit living conditions. That evening, the woman packed up her three children and
drove them to Delaware to stay with an aunt until the police activity died down.

Most of the threats police make to women over the course of a raid, a stop, or an
interrogation are never realized. Consequently, when a woman attempting to protect
a man from the authorities does get arrested or evicted, or loses custody of her children,
the news spreads quickly. Anthony had a cousin who lived in Virginia; she was sentenced
to five years in prison for conspiracy to sell drugs and possession of an illegal
firearm after she refused to serve as a witness for the case against the father of
her child. With both her parents in prison, the four-year-old daughter was sent to
Philadelphia, where she was passed from relative to relative. Two of Miss Linda’s
neighbors got evicted from their government-subsidized housing for harboring a fugitive
and interfering with an arrest when the police entered their home searching for a
man who had robbed a bank. Families around 6th Street often recalled such stories
when they anticipated a raid, or after some interaction with the police.

Presenting Disparaging Evidence

In order to get her to provide information, the police may injure a woman or destroy
her property. If she persists in protecting the man, they threaten to arrest her,
to publicly denounce her, to confiscate and appropriate her possessions, to evict
her, or to take her children away. We might call violence and threats
external forces of attack
, as they operate from the outside to weaken the bonds between the woman and the man
the police are after.

The authorities also work within the relationship, by presenting the woman with information
about the man that shatters her high opinion of him and destroys the positive image
she has of their relationship. We might call this an
internal attack
, as it works to break the bonds between men and women from the inside.

The police’s presentation of disparaging evidence operates as a com
plex, two-way maneuver. First, they demonstrate to the woman that the man she is trying
to protect has cheated on her. They show her his cell phone records, text messages,
and statements from women in the neighborhood. The improvement of tracking technologies
means that no large effort need be made to furnish these pieces of evidence: they
can be quickly gathered at a computer. If the police have no concrete evidence, they
suggest and insinuate that the man has been unfaithful, or at least that he doesn’t
truly care about her but is simply using her. At this point the officers explain that
at the first opportunity, this man who does not love her will give her up to save
his own skin, will allow her to be blamed for his crimes. Perhaps he has already done
so.

Just as the officers are explaining to the woman how her partner has been unfaithful
and duplicitous, and would easily let her hang for his crimes, so they present the
man with evidence of
her
betrayals. They show him statements she signed down at the precinct detailing his
activities, or the call sheet filled out at the Warrant Unit, where, after repeated
raids on her house, she phoned to tell authorities where he was hiding. They may also
show him evidence that she has cheated on him, which they collect by tracking her
cell phone, bills, and purchases, or from statements given by other men and women
who are part of the couple’s circle.

In short, the police denigrate the man and the relationship to the point that a woman
cannot protect him and continue to think of herself as a person of worth. In anger
and hurt, and saddled with the new fear that this man who doesn’t love her may try
to blame her for his misdeeds, leaving her to rot in prison, a woman becomes increasingly
eager to help the police.

Moral Appeals

The previous techniques of persuasion work by weakening the bonds between the woman
and the man the police are pursuing. Moral appeals to the value of imprisonment operate
on the opposite principle: they rely on the strength of the woman’s attachment, and
play on her resolve to help and protect him. Specifically, moral appeals involve adjusting
what the woman believes to be the right thing to do concerning the man she loves.

Before the police come knocking, a woman may believe that it is best
for the man in her life to stay out of prison. He will go crazy in his cell, he will
get stabbed, or get AIDS, or have an unhealthy diet. The prison won’t see to his medical
needs, like his diabetes or the worrisome bullets lodged in his body.
¹¹
He will lose his job if he has one, or find it more difficult to find work once he
comes home. Being in a cell day after day, cut off from society, with guards barking
orders at him, he will become dehumanized, and normal life will become unfamiliar
to him. To keep him from this fate, sacrifices must be made.

The police explain to the woman that this logic is flawed. In fact, the man would
benefit from a stay in prison. He needs to make a clean break from his bad associates.
It is not safe for him on the streets; he might be killed if he continues to sell
drugs, or may overdose, if his proclivities run that way. He is spiraling deeper and
deeper into dangerous behavior; jail will be a safe haven for him. Going to prison
will teach him a lesson; he will emerge a better man, one more capable of caring for
her and the children. The drama must end, they tell her, his drama and the drama that
comes because of all the police activity. He has too many legal entanglements, too
many court cases, warrants, probation sentences. He will be better able to find work
without the warrants. It would be better if the man simply got it over with and began
his life afresh. She can help him; she can save him before it is too late. He will
thank her one day for this tough love.

A variant on this line of persuasion is that while it may not be best for the man
to go to prison, it will be best for the family as a whole. Protecting the man means
that she risks losing her children and her home; the bail in her name means that she
could go into debt to the city and be jailed if she cannot pay it. His actions also
expose her children to bad people and bad things. As a responsible mother, sister,
or daughter, she should save her family and turn him in.

Promises of Confidentiality and Other Protections

The police’s techniques of persuasion are often bolstered by promises that no information
she provides will be shared with the man or with anyone else among her acquaintance.
In twenty-one of the twenty-four raids that I witnessed, officers told family members
that the man would never be made aware that they had given him up. During the two
questionings I was involved in, the police assured me of my confidentiality,
and when women recounted their own interrogations, they mentioned that the same promise
was made to them the majority of the time.

The Multipronged Approach

Violence, threats, disparaging evidence, moral appeals, and promises of protection
are analytically separable, but the police often deploy these techniques in tandem,
each serving to strengthen and reinforce the other.

It was difficult for me to observe women’s interrogations, because they were conducted
behind closed doors at the police department, and women were reluctant to recount
their experience once they got back home. For these reasons, I have used my own interrogation
as an example.

This interrogation is notable because the police made use of many of the techniques
described above, despite having very little to work with: they did not know what my
relationship was to the men they were interested in; I was not living in public housing;
I had no children; and neither I nor anyone in my immediate family had an arrest history
or pending legal problems.

I had dropped Mike and Chuck off on 6th Street and was heading toward the airport
to pick up a friend. Two unmarked cars come up behind me, a portable siren on top
of the first one, and I pull over. A cop walks over to my window and shines a flashlight
in my face; he orders me to step out of the car and show him my license. Then one
of the cops tells me I am coming with them.

I leave the car on 2nd Street and get into the backseat of their car, a green Lincoln.
The white cop in the back with me would have been skinny if not for the bulletproof
vest, holster, gun, nightstick, and whatever else he had in his belt. He cracks bubble-gum
hard and smells like the stuff Mike and Chuck use to clean their guns. On the way
to the precinct, the white cop who is driving tells me that if I am looking for some
Black dick, I don’t have to go to 6th Street; I could come right to the precinct at
8th and Vine. The Black cop in the passenger side grins and shakes his head, says
something about how he doesn’t want any of me; he would probably catch some shit.

At the precinct, another white guy pats me down. He is smirking at me
as he touches my hips and thighs. There is a certain look of disdain, or perhaps disgust,
that white men sometimes give to white women whom they believe to be having sex with
Black men—Black men who get arrested, especially.

They take me up the stairs to the second floor, the Detective Unit. I sit in a little
room for a while, and then the two white cops come in, dark-green cargo pants and
big black combat boots, and big guns strapped onto their legs. They remove the guns
and put them on the table facing me. One cop leafs through a folder and puts pictures
in front of me of Mike, then Chuck, then Reggie. Most of the pictures are of 6th Street,
some taken right in front of my apartment. Some mug shots. Of the forty or so pictures
he shows me, I knew about ten men by name and recognize another ten. They question
me for about an hour and a half. From what I remember many hours later:

Is Mike the supplier? Do you think he’ll protect you when we bring him in? He won’t
protect you! Who has the best stuff, between Mike and Steve, in your expert opinion?
We know you were around here last week when all that shit went down. (What shit?)
We saw you on 2nd Street, and we know you’re up on 4th Street. What business do you
have up 4th Street? I hate to see a pretty young girl get passed around so much. Do
your parents know that you’re fucking a different nigger every night? The good cop
counters with: All we want to do is protect you. We are trying to help you. We’re
not going to tell him you gave us any information. This is between us. No paper trail.
Did you sign anything when you came in? No. Nobody knows you are even here. The bad
cop: If you can’t work with us, then who will you call when he’s sticking a gun to
your head? You can’t call us! He’ll kill you over a couple of grams. You know that,
right? You better hope whoever you’re fucking isn’t in one of the pictures you’re
looking at here, because all of these boys, see them? Each and every one of them will
be in jail by Monday morning. And he’ll be the first one to drop your name when he’s
sitting in this chair. And then it’s conspiracy, obstruction of justice, harboring
a fugitive, concealing narcotics, firearms. How do you think we picked you up in the
first place? Who do you think is the snitch? What is your Daddy going to say when
you call him from the station and ask him to post your
bail? Bet he’d love to hear what you are doing. Do you kiss him with that mouth?

.   .   .

To fully grasp the effect of these techniques of persuasion on women, we must understand
the broader context of police violence in which they occur.

Between November 2002 and April of 2003, I spent a large part of every day with Aisha
and her friends and relatives, who lived about fifteen blocks away from 6th Street.
From the steps of her building or walking around the adjacent blocks, on fourteen
occasions, a little more than twice a month, we watched the police beat up people
as they were arresting them. Here is one account from the fall of 2007:

It is late afternoon, and Aisha and I are sitting on the stoop, chatting with her
aunt and her older cousin. Aisha’s mother sits next to us, waiting for her boyfriend
to come with five dollars so that she can finish her laundry.

A white police officer jogs by, his torso weaving awkwardly, his breath coming loud
enough for us to hear. Then I notice a young man running a little ahead of him, also
out of breath, as if he had been running for a long time. The man slows to a walk,
and leans down with his hands on his knees. The cop approaches him, running in this
stilted way, and grabs the back of his neck with one hand, pushing him down to the
ground. Drawing his nightstick, he straddles the man in a half crouch, and begins
hitting him in the back and neck with it.

Two of Aisha’s neighbors get up off the steps and quietly approach the scene, keeping
some yards away. Aisha makes no move to get up; nor does her aunt or cousin. But we
lean over to see.

Police cars pull up to the corner with sirens and lights on, first one then another,
then another, blocking the street off. They handcuff the young man, whose face is
now covered in blood, especially the side that had been scraped across the cement.

The police move the man to the cop car, and one cop places his hand on top of the
man’s head to guide him into the backseat. Then they look around on the ground, apparently
searching the area for something. Two of the cops speak into walkie-talkies.