He was sitting there with his hands cuffed behind his back. I never know whether to avert my eyes or to acknowledge what is happening with a direct look. I cannot tell what it means to do the least harm when another black man is being arrested. If I look at him, does it add to his burden in that moment or does it break his isolation? He is surrounded by five officers and cars with lights flashing yellows, reds and blues, like a disco for criminals.

Sometimes as I walk by this mass effort at arresting stereotypes, I yell, “Don’t forget the constitution” and look directly at the officers as they turn to look at me.  I remember one woman who would write down the badge numbers of police officers at protests in case they used their power inappropriately. Yet, I don’t think about writing down the badge numbers in that moment. I am not sure what it means to do the least harm, I just don’t know.

I don’t know why there needs to be four police cars and five officers to arrest a 20 something boy. How dangerous can he be? Even if he did break a law, does there need to be a trail of officers to secure a man who is hand cuffed? What does it mean to be innocent until proven guilty?

As I watched the officers mingle around this boy, I remember driving through Berkeley with my then boyfriend at the time. He was a large black man, tall and thick with a soft voice. An expired taillight at the wrong hour of the evening translated to an officer pulling us over. Ironically, about a week or two earlier, my boyfriend had his wallet stolen and the robber had decided to steal my boyfriend’s identify and engage in an extensive fraudulent check scheme. The robber got caught and appeared in court using my boyfriend’s identification. Of course, all black people look alike, so no one questioned the photo on the identification he presented. The robber skipped his second court date and the court put a warrant out for his arrest.

So when the police ran my boyfriend’s license, the outstanding warrant showed up and my boyfriend was asked to step out of the car. The short white woman officer clearly intimidated by the size of my boyfriend called for backup. Literally, within minutes four to five police cars showed up with flashing lights and full of white male officers. They jumped out with hands on their guns or batons and surrounded the car and asked us to get out. The whole world turned into flashes of red, yellows and blue as if we were in a disco for criminals. I have never been so scared in my entire life. We are black and in Berkeley at midnight without a soul to witness what is taking place. Wrong place, wrong time and wrong skin color.

It was unbelievable to see this man-my man-who served abused children as a counselor smashed up against the car. He started to cry and I kept asking what is happening, what is the crime and they won’t answer me, except to warn me to keep my distance. They ransack the glove compartment, the spaces under the seats and any notion of our humanity. They shoved him in the back seat and he struggled to catch his breath between tears.

I attempted to calm him down and an officer stepped forward to block me. I was an accomplice, dirty, tainted and stained as a vicarious criminal, because I was in the car with him. I started to cry and said, “Come on, let me try to calm him down.” The officer stepped back and I put my hand through the half-cracked window. I rubbed his head, petting his hair with shaky hands and a shaky voice when I said, “Baby, don’t worry, we are going to fix it, we are going to make it right.” Even I was not convinced justice would be served. He told me to call one of his friends, Robert. They drove him away, taking the disco with them and I left with an eery silence, ancient ancestral fear and the task of attempting to drive a car one block home when my whole body was shaking with panic and pain. Wrong place, wrong time and wrong skin color.

Apparently, we were also in the wrong class.  I had no money to post bail and neither did his family. We had no assets to put forth, like a mortgage to a house so the bail bondsman could secure his release. We had nothing, but his innocence. I did not know what to do. My boyfriend called me to tell me that unless I get him out of there; he is going to be extradited to Los Angeles to stand trial for not only contempt of court, but for the crime that the man-posing as him-had committed. I had two or three days to make something happen and there was nothing happening.

I did not sleep at all that night. The next day I called Robert and exploded in my despair. I knew that if he went to Los Angeles and told the court that he was innocent and that his identification was stolen, the likelihood that they would believe him was next to null. He would be another criminal, another black man trying to beat the system. Sobbing, I could barely hear my boyfriend’s friend tell me to hold on and to keep trying. Robert was standing in the fire with me and it was everything, everything! I hung up the phone and sat on the floor in the middle of my apartment. I remember sitting there, holding my knees tight to my chest, rocking myself and staring at the yellow pages.

I took a deep breath and grabbed the telephone book and opened it to the bail bondsman section. I had already called at least ten of them and none of them could help us without assets. I said a prayer, “God, please lead me to someone who can help us.” I closed my eyes and put my finger on the bail bondsman page and moved it until it felt like it was time to stop. My finger landed on a new organization at the time called Bad Boys. I called them and they told me that they did not need a mortgage or tons of money, just a deposit that Robert could cover. They contacted my boyfriend and they called me every step of the way to calm down my nerves.  My boyfriend was home after a few days and I hugged him like I had found my own breath.

Charges were still pending against him and I helped him prepare for his case in Los Angeles, so this would never happen again. I organized every piece of paper he had into a booklet that showed who he was, secured affidavits from his employer and time sheets that showed his location at the time of the crimes. It is the first time that I realized how difficult it can be to prove who you are and who you are not. I tabbed, collated, numerated, put it all in a clear cover with an index cover sheet and made three duplicate copies for the world to see. I filled all the empty spaces with prayer and intention and I was clear that nobody was taking my man away from me again. The public defender told my boyfriend the booklet was critical to the case. The court realized it was a case of mistaken identity and before we knew it, we were free from the case and free to rebuild our notions of safety, our humanity and our right to be.

I don’t know what to do when four or five police officers are surrounding a black man. This 20 something boy, he was sitting there with his hands cuffed behind his back. This time, I chose to lock eyes with him. Through my look, I told him that I was sorry. He looked at me, blinked and then looked down. My eyes followed his lead and I looked down to discover that I was walking by two pigeons copulating. I said to myself, “Yeah that is about right, that is the perfect symbol to summarize this whole scenario.”