The following video further substantiates the belief of people of color that police departments protect and serve white people and harass and intimidate black people. In other words, maintain the status quo through threatening language and violence.
You’ll see what I mean when you check out the video of the officer, Cobb County police officer Maurice Lawson, who was captured on video telling the black male driver that “I don’t care about your people. Go back to Fulton County.”
Fulton County houses the city of Atlanta and suburbs that have large percentages of black citizens. Cobb is a neighboring county of Fulton.
Remarkably, Lawson was not fired for having the audacity to say this on tape, but was only transferred to another precinct. Incredible.
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This is not the first time that Lawson has been the subject of inquiries about his abhorrent behavior.
According to the AJC:
Lisa Cupid, who is African-American, was caught up in a firestorm this summer, after she complained about Lawson following her so aggressively that she thought he was going to ram her from behind. She said of that experience with Lawson that he “was not there to protect and serve. He was there to harass and intimidate.”
Cupid was leaving a hotel during the early morning hours, after studying for the bar examination, when Lawson began following her in an undercover car, with tinted windows and only one working headlight. The commissioner, who has seen the Baker video, said she met with Lawson and his precinct commander earlier this week, and left that meeting with a “headache.”
“The video at the very least demonstrates some question about this officer’s level of judgment,” Cupid said. “I could easily be jumping up and down and pointing the fingure right now. That’s not the action I want to take. I’m just being very watchful about how they respond.”
Cupid said of her incident that the officer would not have followed a white driver in a more “affluent” part of the county. She was heavily criticized — by members of the public and by her fellow commissioners — and complained that county leadership didn’t adequately respond to her questions and concerns. Police investigation found that Lawson did not violate departmental policy in his encounter with Cupid.
Commissioner Bob Weatherford said Cupid’s complaint “has created division that in my view may impede her ability to govern her district.”
Weatherford said he hadn’t seen the dash board video of the Baker incident when contacted Thursday, and said he wouldn’t get involved in an ongoing police investigation.
Most people reading this will inevitably ask why this man still has a job? And why was he simply transferred to another side of town where he can harass other people of color?
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