| FlickrCommons |
In Florida, like pretty much every other state in the nation, black people get arrested on pot charges four times as often as whites. The state is consistently in the top five in the country for marijuana-related arrests, and getting busted with anything under 20 grams can get you a year in jail.
So when four plainclothes cops from the Miami Dade Police Department walked up on Tannie “T-Man” Burke and two of his buddies on the evening of August 27th and accused them of smoking weed, it’s really no surprise that Burke ended up in the back of a police cruiser.
What is pretty disturbing is what the cops did with him next.
In their report on the incident, the officers who busted Burke and ticketed his friends claim that they witnessed the three men passing a “marijuana cigarette” back and forth as they approached.
When encountered by the narcs, no weed was found on the men, but the cops claim they found an allegedly discarded joint on the ground nearby.
As Burke’s two buddies were signing tickets promising to appear in court at a later date, his stepfather Marvin Armstrong started not only rolling video tape of the scene, but providing his own commentary as well as he berated the officers shaking down the young men.
Instead of being offered the option of the ticket and promise to appear, the officers led Burke towards their vehicle, awkwardly slamming him into the car as they tried to force him inside.
On the videotape, Armstrong can be heard yelling, “He’s blind dumbass! If you don’t tell him y’all walking to the car how the fuck is he going to know?”
That’s right, 21-year old Tannie Burke has been legally blind since birth. With zero vision out of his right eye, and the vision in his left eye limited to vague, blurry objects, he rarely strays too far from the block he was busted on.
As Armstrong continues to roll tape, police instruct him to back up, to which he replies, “Shut the hell up man.”
With Burke detained in the back seat, the police took off, leaving his family and friends worried for their handicapped homie. Little did they know what he was about to endure.
Burke says that the officers drove him around for at least 20 minutes after leaving his street. He says that he told them about his medical condition, but that they expressed no sympathy. To the contrary, they spent the time berating his stepfather, Marvin Armstrong, the man behind the camera.
Burke says that the undercover cops told him, “Your stepfather got a lot of mouth. You know we don’t like that.”
After the disorienting ride, the car pulled over on a dark stretch of road along some vacant farm land in South Dade. There, without even a streetlight to go by, Burke was forced to sign an arrest report that he obviously could not see or read.
Then he was left on the side of the street as the police pulled away into the darkness.
Reaching for his cell phone, he immediately remembered that the police had taken it and not given it back. Though Tannie Burke was just over a mile from home, he may as well have been on another planet.
He knew he’d never find his way home, so he headed for a faint glow well down the road, which turned out to be a lonely street light. There he paced, back and forth, along what he hoped would be a safe stretch of the street.
To avoid wandering out into the road, Burke kept one foot on the asphalt, and the other in the weeds, as he shuffled back and forth.
Eventually a stranger found him and helped him get home, some 45 minutes after the cops had whisked him away.
For the record, Tannie Burke has never been convicted of a crime, but as a perfect reflection of our discriminatory law enforcement apparatus in this country, he has been arrested twice and detained by police on more than a dozen occasions.
The misdemeanor charges he was slapped with in August were totally dismissed by local prosecutors last month.
On their website, the Miami Dade Police Department claims to “treat all persons in a dignified and courteous manner, and exhibit understanding of ethnic and cultural diversity, both in our professional and personal endeavors.”
Blacks make up 19% of the population in Miami Dade County, but account for well over 40% of weed-related arrests.
| WikiCommons |
They promise to “provide quality service in a courteous, efficient, and accessible manner.” Unless, of course, you’re legally blind and the sun has gone down.
But the money shot is this claim – “We hold ourselves accountable for our actions and take pride in a professional level of service and fairness to all.”
Tannie “T-Man” Burke is putting this pledge to the test, and has filed a formal complaint against the department for the way he was mistreated on August 27th.
The Miami Dade Police Department says that the case is being investigated by their “Internal Affairs” unit. Apparently, the “Sweep it Under the Rug Unit” was too obvious a name.