Black former gang member confronts white Ferguson cop

Another intense confrontation with a white cop. This time it was in Ferguson about a year after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by another white cop.

Reggie had experienced many edgy interactions with the police through the years. A large African American man, Reggie, 38, was born and raised on St. Louis’ east side, in and near the projects. The townhouse in which he once lived stands boarded up in a dilapidated ghetto.

Recently Reggie and I engaged in a series of quiet talks at his home, a small rented house just outside Ferguson. We had met through an interracial group called Ferguson Forward.

Reggie’s childhood memories are filled with images of his angry, crack-addicted mother and the string of boyfriends that came in and out of their chaotic household. He told me of periodic sexual abuse. This included a female babysitter engaging him in watching video porn when he was 7 years old and coercing him to “prove yourself” by imitating behavior on the screen.

He remembers, as a young boy on the streets, more than once being jumped and beaten by a group of boys. At first he’d run home crying. “But I soon learned how to catch them alone and get my revenge,” he told me.

In his early teens, Reggie said he was “blessed” into a gang after enduring an initiation beating at the hand of gang members. “They kicked and beat me to see if I could stand it and still throw a punch. I passed, was hugged and given a rag,” he said, referring to a bandana. “Being a gang member gave a sense of belonging, of being close. The reason people do it is to belong to something. Loneliness makes people do bad, crazy things. The beautiful thing about it, it’s like family. Now I had status.”

Reggie, dubbed “Quest” by other gang members because they saw him as intelligent and inquisitive, spoke of many gang fights, drug-selling, and various crimes.

When he was seventeen, a fellow gang member, “Tadpole”, was shot and killed. As Reggie told me the story of Tadpole’s death a palpable sense of sadness came over him. He looked down at the table at which we were sitting, slowly shaking his head as his eyes visibly moistened. In a soft, nearly broken voice he said, “If anybody could’ve made it, it would be Tadpole. He was in basketball and track. He was good at football. He was cool with the ladies. I don’t know why it happened, but it did.”

In spite of the challenges of his youth, Reggie managed to graduate from his east side high school which was so strapped for funds that, even in the 1990s when he attended, the archaic textbooks spoke of America striving to one day put a man on the moon.

In a theme which has become prominent since the Ferguson upheaval, Reggie tells of multiple experiences of what he feels was harassment at the hands of small-municipality police. He told me of being pulled over in one tiny city, well-known as a “ticket mill”.

“I was pulled over for having my high beams on because that’s the only headlights that worked,” he said. “I ended up with a string of tickets for tinted windows, hazardous rims and stuff like that. They act like African Americans are the only ones they’re looking for.” He said he went to court and was assessed hundreds of dollars in fines.

Once, as a young man, he was driving home with friends from a club late at night. Suddenly they were surrounded by several police cars with flashing lights and by officers with drawn guns. In an instant, he said, he and his friends found themselves “eating gravel,” lying face down on the ground with hands spread. “I wondered, what did I do? They said there had been car break-ins and we fit the description.”

He told of another traffic stop in which he said the officer reached into the car and grabbed him by the shirt. Reggie thought, “Why do you treat me that way? You don’t know me.”

“When police pull up behind you with the cherries & berries flashing, it makes you very anxious, like what I do now?” he said. From his youth up, Reggie has carried a deep hatred of police.

The path toward Reggie’s surprising participation in Ferguson Forward—a faith-based interracial group led by a pastor--was full of twists and turns.

When 14 years old, after yet another fight with his drug addicted mother, Reggie said he was gripped with the frustration and sadness of being trapped in that miserable household.

In a gray, drizzling rain he made his way to the steps of a small church in the neighborhood and plopped down. For lack of other possibility, he cried out to God, “Why me? Help me God.” He explained, “At that moment it was the best I knew. Being a kid, what can you do? Who you complain to?”

Things went on pretty much as they always had and Reggie eventually entered into the life of the street gang.

Just before Reggie turned eighteen and shortly after the devastating death of Tadpole, his aunt was seeking to have a constructive influence in his life. She encouraged him to embrace Jesus by faith. Eventually, in his desperation, he did. He soon started attending her church where he participated in Bible classes and discussion groups.

“They helped me build up my knowledge & experience and enhance my one-on-one relationship with Christ,” he explained. “God was now more than an idea, it was about a personal relationship.”

Some friends challenged him not to take his new faith so seriously but for Reggie it seemed a matter of survival.

“In Bible studies, I learned what to watch for, to war in the spirit, to don’t give the enemy a foothold,” he said. With the aid of his new faith Reggie soon managed to pull away from gang life.

“The number one thing faith in Christ produced in me was a level of peace I didn’t think possible. He has given me a level of hope I didn’t know existed,” Reggie said. “My faith has caused me to love patiently also, having to love my mother thru all the mess she’s kicked up over the years.”

That mess seemed considerable.

Reggie remembers coming home one day, when in the sixth grade, to observe smoke oozing out of the cracks between wall panels as their townhouse was filling with smoke. “My mom was so high on crack she didn’t even notice,” he said. Reggie put her over his shoulders and carried her outside before the fire department was called. “She didn’t know what was happening,” he said.

As he got older and obtained a job at a fast food restaurant, his mother would regularly take his money. One time she cashed and spent his $550 tax refund check.

Anguished by her behavior, after he came to faith he continually prayed for her. He summarized his pleas over the years, “God, look, I know you can help her get to where she needs to be. You can fix her--please.”

Only after the fact did Reggie realize that, in the intervening years, his mother also came to not only accept Christ like he had but eventually got off drugs and alcohol. “I didn’t realize when it happened because she had already kicked me out of the house. One day she said, ‘I don’t smoke that stuff anymore.’ She stopped cold turkey without the aid of any rehab centers or anything. She’s been clean for years now. It’s a testament to who God can be if we let him,” he said.

Reggie says he and his mother currently have a much improved, positive relationship. “She quit yanking my chain,” he said.

“All the stuff that happens to me, I didn’t understand why it was allowed to happen,” he reflected. “There’s a method to the madness. It has allowed me to relate and encourage people from eight to eighty through things people go through.”

For all the changes he experienced over the years, one thing that had never changed for Reggie was his hatred of police. It was the Ferguson racial unrest that led to perhaps his most intense police encounter.

At the height of the tension over the shooting of Michael Brown, Reggie befriended a white pastor, Daryl, who, along with an African American pastor initiated the discussion-fellowship group Ferguson Forward. This interracial group is dedicated to honest communication between whites and blacks with an eye toward reconciliation.

It was at these meetings where I first met Reggie. After many weeks of meetings, it came as a surprise when he requested the group to pray for his hatred of police. Many weeks later Reggie himself was surprised—and dismayed—when a white Ferguson police officer, Brad (name changed), showed up at one of the meetings.

I asked Reggie how he reacted in that moment. “Sourness,” he said, “real funky attitude. It’s like, I don’t like police, I don’t care what. I automatically hated.”

Over the course of that evening the group of whites and blacks interacted with the officer as he described his experience as a police officer in Ferguson. In the course of the conversation he spoke of something that resonated with Reggie’s own experience of police encounters—fear.

“Him talking of fear and anxiety, the craziness of what you encounter as an officer of the law, is what opened me up to the humanity side of being a cop. He became a person,” Reggie said.

“Open dialog with the group allowed me to engage him without feeling threatened because I felt like I was in a safe place. I didn’t have any thought that he’d jump across the table or anything. It was a really good neutral environment for us to encounter each other. The whole time I’m going over this in my head, ‘I don’t feel afraid, annoyed, don’t feel scared’. I was surprised.”

After the group session, Daryl personally introduced Reggie and the officer. “Pastor Daryl told him, ‘Reggie’s at a point where he hates police, everything they stand for.’ We began talking from there,” Reggie said.

In the course of their personal conversation it became apparent to Reggie that the officer was hurting from conflict within his family, something with which Reggie could personally identify.

“You never know what a person may be going through,” Reggie said. “Just like my day goes bad, I’m sure officers have bad days, weeks, months, whatever. There’s no telling what the home life is like. Before the encounter with Officer Brad these are things I would never have thought about. I was always used to seeing a cop as this asshole of an individual. I remember thinking, ‘he’s a little different’”.

Over the following months, the officer returned for several of the weekly meetings. On one of those visits he came in plain clothes, injured and wearing a soft cast on his foot.

“It happened trying to chase down a suspect,” Reggie said. “That’s the kind of stuff you think about as for anxiety on the other side of the fence. You don’t know, chasing a suspect, if he’s waiting around the corner with a pistol to shoot your face off. The interaction with him caused me to be a little more sympathetic with the plight of police, period.”

After their conversation on the first night of the officer’s visit, Reggie said he felt moved to pray for him. He led those remaining from the group session, praying for the officer’s safety and family life.

Before leaving, something happened Reggie will never forget. He and the police officer embraced one another in a hug.

“That was huge. I don’t have the adjectives,” Reggie said, hesitating as he struggled to express his emotions. “To have that experience,” he paused again. “I could feel him as a person.”

That encounter on the officer’s first visit to the group was over a year ago. Reggie and Officer Brad continue to stay in touch and communicate. Reggie says his feelings toward police have been different ever since.

“To witness myself being emotional with a cop, it was kind of mind blowing,” he said. “I see officers now and I don’t worry. The anxiety is tons and tons less than previously to having met Brad. The peace of God breaks down walls of nervousness and anxiety. The camaraderie of Ferguson Forward also really helped bring down some walls for me because it’s like, all of a sudden he was not Officer Brad. He was Brad the man.”

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