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ess_trainor's profile
Sean Trainor
Sean Trainor
Sean Trainor
@ess_trainor

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Sean Trainor

@ess_trainor

Writing Prof: @UF | Words: @TheAtlantic, @TIME, @Salon, etc. | Co-host: @Impolitic_pod | Member: @Gainesville_SA, @laborcoalition, @uff_uf. | he / him

Gainesville, FL
seantrainor.org
Joined November 2011

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    Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

    A long time ago, when I was younger and dumber, I did a police ride-along with a high school classmate who had gone on to become a cop. It was one of the most chilling and radicalizing nights of my life. (Thread)

    2:50 pm - 7 Jun 2020
    • 94,294 Retweets
    • 219,147 Likes
    • Kalin Ringkvist Lolomari Felix 💦 Amelia Wax Flower ThinkMagazine Mariah Leintz Paul Plowman willybintang Lichen Daemon
    1,112 replies . 94,294 retweets 219,147 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Two memories stand out to me. The first is how my classmate spent most of the night: rolling around suburban Maryland in a patrol car, punching license plate numbers into a database, looking for excuses to pull people over.

        51 replies . 1,278 retweets 28,084 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        My classmate was so bored that he’d punch pretty much anyone’s plate into the database. But he devoted special attention to beat-up cars or drivers who looked “out of place” — which typically meant black or brown drivers in predominantly white neighborhoods.

        43 replies . 1,642 retweets 33,130 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Fortunately, few of those searches resulted in traffic stops. I seem to recall my classmate pulling over a guy for a broken tail light. But, for the most part, he spent the night driving around aimlessly.

        11 replies . 757 retweets 22,927 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        To punctuate his boredom, my classmate would respond to other cops’ traffic stops. When he heard another cop had pulled someone over, he’d turn on his lights and tear off into the night.

        12 replies . 860 retweets 22,526 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Most of the time he’d arrive at the scene of the stop long after the incident had passed. One time, though, the traffic stop was still ongoing.

        3 replies . 638 retweets 19,656 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        In this instance, a colleague of his had pulled over a car for some trivial reason — a broken tail light or expired registration — and then discovered that the driver was, as I recall, an ex-convict driving with an expired license.

        13 replies . 700 retweets 19,832 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        The guy (who was white) had gotten out of prison earlier in the week and hadn’t had a chance to renew his license. When he got pulled over, he was driving around with his wife and young kids.

        18 replies . 712 retweets 20,332 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Not content to leave this poor guy with a warning, the officer who initiated the traffic stop asked him to step out of his car for a conversation. As they were talking, more and more bored cops rolled up, including my classmate.

        9 replies . 839 retweets 21,389 likes
        Show this thread
      10. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Not surprising, the situation kept getting more intense. The guy who had been pulled over looked increasingly stressed as more cops materialized. And the cops responded to his stress with heightened levels of aggression.

        11 replies . 1,092 retweets 25,835 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Eventually the scene came to a boil. I don’t know exactly what happened. I seem to recall the guy taking a swing at a cop or raising his voice. Regardless, he wound up face down on the curb, his hands cuffed behind his back.

        27 replies . 710 retweets 20,116 likes
        Show this thread
      12. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        His family looked on screaming and crying as the cops hauled him away. It had been a short family reunion.

        11 replies . 696 retweets 21,557 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        As we drove away, my classmate told me that, because this guy had violated his parole, he would likely do a multi-year stint in prison.

        21 replies . 777 retweets 21,489 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        And that was night: a full shift devoted to manufacturing crime — desperately searching for reasons to pull people over and then harassing people until they snapped.

        42 replies . 7,420 retweets 67,403 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        My classmate wasn’t an exception to his department’s rule. He wasn’t a “bad apple.” As he told it, he was doing exactly what his department expected him to do. He saw himself — in fact had been trained to see himself — as a dog protecting sheep from wolves.

        35 replies . 2,611 retweets 38,564 likes
        Show this thread
      16. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        But from inside his car, the sheep receded from view, and all the flesh-and-blood people in his community — and especially the people of color — took on a decidedly wolf-like aspect. He clearly viewed them as enemies and interacted with them as such.

        22 replies . 1,684 retweets 31,705 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        In short, nothing he did made anyone safer. He didn’t protect or defend a damn thing, except white supremacy and class domination. His entire shift had been devoted to profiling, harassing, and intimidating people.

        48 replies . 4,557 retweets 52,037 likes
        Show this thread
      18. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        Looking back on it, I feel like shit about that night — I wish I had said something or objected to his behavior. Though, at the time, I had neither the perspective, the words, nor the courage to do so.

        27 replies . 721 retweets 25,899 likes
        Show this thread
      19. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        But, objectively, I know that nothing I could have said would have made a difference. Even if I had convinced him to quit, someone else would have done his job exactly as he had. The problem wasn’t my classmate. It was the whole rotten system designed to terrorize people.

        34 replies . 1,974 retweets 35,432 likes
        Show this thread
      20. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        What I learned that night is that behind every Derek Chauvin or Darren Wilson — behind every dramatic eruption of violence — is a whole universe of pervasive, mundane, and wanton cruelty.

        52 replies . 2,982 retweets 40,331 likes
        Show this thread
      21. Sean Trainor‏ @ess_trainor 7 Jun 2020

        The cruelty isn’t an accident; it’s the point.

        370 replies . 8,316 retweets 74,326 likes
        Show this thread
      22. End of conversation

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