Like Many Others, She Was Targeted For Walking While Black

young black woman walking across the street
Zain Murdock
September 4, 2024

"The moment he charged at me out of his car and just seeing that look of just anger...," remembers Christiana Porter, "I immediately knew he didn't have good intentions." On July 29, Porter crossed a street in San Francisco. The light changed when she was halfway across. Then, in a frenzy of events, police officer Josh McFall honked and followed her. He detained her and then threw her against a wall.

The officer demanded to see her ID, and then attacked her when she reached into her purse for it. Several other cops came to "assist." Porter ended up with a concussion, separated right shoulder, and torn ligaments in her knee.

Porter, like the vastly disproportionate number of Black people ticketed or brutalized for "jaywalking" in U.S. cities, was only walking. If it's about safety, why not find ways to improve streets for drivers and pedestrians?

Along with criminalizing fare evasion, loitering, and houselessness, this is broken-windows policing. Officers claim to maintain order. But that means punishing the systemically "undesirable" and any victim on a whim.

Porter doesn't trust cops anymore: "They abuse and use their power and authority to brutalize and just torment and harass civilians." Instead of convincing her otherwise, we should listen - and reconsider the idea that policing keeps us safe.

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