Faye Wells, a 5-foot-7, 125-pound black woman, graduate of Duke with an MBA from Dartmouth and vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation discovered this past September what it feels like when one of your neighbors calls 9-1-1 because they mistakenly believe you are an intruder in your own home. What happens is that nineteen officers from the Santa Monica Police appear at your door with guns drawn and a K9 ready to take you down in desperate terrified panic.
On Sept. 6, I locked myself out of my apartment in Santa Monica, Calif. I was in a rush to get to my weekly soccer game, so I decided to go enjoy the game and deal with the lock afterward.
A few hours and a visit from a locksmith later, I was inside my apartment and slipping off my shoes when I heard a man’s voice and what sounded like a small dog whimpering outside, near my front window. I imagined a loiterer and opened the door to move him along. I was surprised to see a large dog halfway up the staircase to my door. I stepped back inside, closed the door and locked it.
I heard barking. I approached my front window and loudly asked what was going on. Peering through my blinds, I saw a gun. A man stood at the bottom of the stairs, pointing it at me. I stepped back and heard: “Come outside with your hands up.” I thought: This man has a gun and will kill me if I don’t come outside. At the same time, I thought: I’ve heard this line from policemen in movies. Although he didn’t identify himself, perhaps he’s an officer.
As she soon discovered, he was a police officer and he was far from alone. Unlike so many other incidents no one physically harmed on this particular day, but the psychic wounds of what Ms. Wells experienced are not likely to heal soon.