I have dog cussed cops, told them I was going to have their arse fired, (almost did once, but he was baby cop so he just got a warning), “don’t pull over people for bullshite in the rich white people’s neighborhood”, (He wanted to check drivers licenses in carpool line at private school at 7:15 am, I was lucky to have both kids in the car.) I have gotten tickets torn up, got pulled over with 6 AR-15s etc in the car and ended up in gun conversation with cop for 30 minutes, I stopped to help cop change a tire once, dropped of two dozen donuts to state troop I pass all the time, I have hired dozens as private security, etc. They are here to help me and protect me in my mind. They are friends. They have hard jobs for chicken shite pay and I feel I should always try to help them any way I can. God only knows how many contributions I have made to various police organizations, but for decades I always felt obligated to.do so.

I feel absolutely no sense of pressure, or intimidation etc when dealing with police. None. Therefore, nothing bad ever happens.

I have a good friend who is a prominent local surgeon and black. As good a guy as you will ever meet black or white. Our sons played soccer together since they were little kids. Years ago after another one of these killings, at a soccer tournament his wife told us how they had to tell their son, who is a well mannered, yes sir no sir, great kid, how to deal with police. I was shocked? Their son was less “hood” than my pansy son.

I wondered how anyone could ever mistake him for a criminal, he looked like the kid that was Will Smiths cousin from prince of Bel Aire. I was sure she was worried over nothing. Then she tells me how many times her husband had been pulled over in his 150k BMW in route to hospital or coming home late at night or early in am for driving while black. Always released when they see his medical credentials, but clearly pulled over for being possible car theft.

My wife and I decided we should talk to our son about possible police encounters too just to be safe. His response was complete disbelief, “Why would they ever pull me over? I am a nice looking white kid from X?” He simply couldn’t believe any police officer would ever have any interest in him unless he was in a wreck or something, or to help him.

We are both successful professionals with family’s in private school in exclusive neighborhood, with no prior criminal history, both been robbed numerous times, none of our family look anything like criminals, he is significantly more active in local community than I am, and they are all much less hot headed than my son or me. Yet they have a real concern over being mistakenly killed by police. I can’t even imagine anything like that. I have fear of police not getting to my house fast enough, which they also share. They are fairly conservative just like we are. The only real significant difference between us is that he is black.

I am not positive but I think that’s white privilege.