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I looked at a couple items, like face wipes. But decided just to get her conditioner. I go to the aisle and was looking for 5 minutes before deciding on one. I turn to go up the aisle to pay there’s a Nassau County Police officer standing there. With his weapon drawn.

First he goes down another aisle. Then comes back...with another officer also with his weapon drawn. The second officer screams at me to get on the ground. Now. I can barely hear them cuz of my headphones.

“What is happening?!” I raised both hands with my right still holding the conditioner. “JUST FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS!” He shouted back. “Put your hands on the ground and move them forward”

My headphones were still blaring, I could barely hear. “I CAN’T HEAR BECAUSE OF MY HEADPHONES. PLEASE TAKE THEM OFF. SO I CAN FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS.” All I wanted to do was follow instructions. Last thing I wanted was some mild mistake to end my life. Like with Daniel Shaver.

I’ve watched that video a dozen times wondering if I’d make the same mistake if I were in that situation. All Shaver did was reach back to pull his shorts up when they fell a little. A subconscious, small hand motion. He probably didn’t even think about it. And it ended his life

What if I missed an instruction because of the K-Pop blaring in my ears? What if I reached for my ears and this rookie flinched?

One of the ear cups must have shifted because I could hear the cop yelling. As he instructed. I got on the ground and crawled my hands forward. Kind of like Shaver.

They put the bracelets on and oddly enough I felt a little safer after that. I was still screaming for them to take of my headphones which they did. They searched my pockets and gym bag. I hadn’t taken anything so I was fine. They let me go.

That’s the scary part. Here’s. The infuriating part. The clerk at the store called the police because she thought I was shop lifting. When Nassau County PD got the call. It was for an armed robbery.

When they came in, they were looking for somebody with a gun. That’s why theirs were drawn. The bottle of conditioner I picked out was white. What if I had picked the black bottle? What if they had seen it wrong?

What if my skin was darker? What if the cops had been a little bit jumpy?

If this has gone bad. I never would have told my side of the story. Yeah, the news story would have said I was unarmed. But those four officers would have command of the narrative.

Thank Gd nobody pulled a trigger. But I really want to know what happened. How was there such a colossal failure in communication?

Listening to music on headphones so loud might not have been the smartest move, but it was almost deadly. And it shouldn’t have been.