Here is a positive story about black encounters with police and fake guns.
A Black teenager was left shaken after a neighbor called police on him while he was practicing an ROTC routine with a replica rifle.Jathan Walthour, 16, recently joined the Air Force ROTC team at Sanderson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina.
He was practicing in his street on Tuesday when a neighbor called 911, his father Shawn Krest said.
Walthour told the station that he had been marching down the street with the fake rifle on his shoulder when officers arrived at the scene.
He said he knew how to handle the situation thanks to training from a community program called Police Explorers. “I placed the gun down on the ground and walked away from it,” he said. “And I kept my hands visible, away from my pockets and things because the officers recommend you keep your hands where the officers can see you.”
But Walthour said he is aware the police encounter could have ended badly for him.
“I had definitely feared that I could have gotten killed that day, or even put in handcuffs,”
Happy ending. This kid is on point. However, his father (step father I’m guessing) is white and seems to want to push back harder than necessary judging by this comment:
In his Twitter thread, Krest said the officers were "not aggressive with him and saw right away that it was 'a misunderstanding' on the neighbor's part."He continued: "They suggested that maybe he could practice marching & drill in the back yard instead of the front yard.
“Instead, I’ll be buying a lawn chair & patio table tomorrow morning & sit out in our driveway whenever he wants to practice, to make sure our neighbors don’t try to get him killed.”