Locals recount being racially profiled and harassed by US police
“A woman white cop came up to me … She dragged me around the block where persons couldn’t see as she slammed me against the wall with the gun to my head.” — Dr Drexel Glasgow “I felt as though I was harassed because of the colour of my skin. It was a frightening experience” — Nicoy Hendrickson recalls police stop in the US “I grew up in a system where privilege denied me of my opportunity to simply find a job because of my skin colour” — Jovan Wilson
By Esther Durand, BVI News Staff
Years before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill, Director of Projects in the Ministry of Finance Dr Drexel Glasgow was reportedly seriously brutalised by police in the same United States city because he was a person of colour (black).
Dr Glasgow was only a student at the time and recalled that he was heading home from school when he decided to purchase a meal at a Burger King in Minneapolis on a cold winter’s evening.
However, his decision to visit the fast-food restaurant turned out to be ill-timed. Around the time he was leaving the establishment, police were responding to an armed robbery in the area and Glasgow said he was assaulted by a Caucasian police officer.
“A woman white cop came up to me with a gun cocked in the air. Pushed me against a wall and asked me if I had a weapon … She dragged me around the block where persons couldn’t see as she slammed me against the wall with the gun to my head asking me if I had a weapon,” he said while recounting the frightening experience.
Glasow, who was speaking at the Black Lives Matter march in Road Town on Saturday, said the police officer searched him and groped him. He was also slammed on to a police cruiser in freezing temperatures. Glasgow said he was not wearing a coat and began shiver from the cold so he mustered the courage to question one of the officers the reason he was being accosted.
It was then a male police officer told of a report they had received that the food establishment had been held up. Glasgow said he was released after the officers became satisfied that he was not the bandit.
Dr Glasgow, who was studying for his PhD at the time, said he never shared that harrowing experience with his mother.
Walking home
Twenty-one-year-old local, Nicoy Hendrickson said he too was the victim of police harassment in the US.
“The first time I got the talk about being pulled over by the cops is when I moved to the United States in 2013 to complete my secondary education.”
He said a woman he lived with in Philadelphia, told him: “This is a different space, quite literally a different world. You cannot walk around with your hoodie on as freely as you did in Tortola. If the police pull you over, stay still, do not reach for anything whatsoever. Tell them my number and have them call me. Don’t even reach for your phone.”
He lamented that this is a conversation white people do not have to have with their children.
“She insisted that I was effortlessly able to recite her number to law enforcement if need be. Believe it or not, I have been stopped while walking in 20 degrees weather, footsteps away from my apartment door because I had my hoodie on just to protect my little ball head to keep it a little bit warm.”
‘I felt as though I was harassed’
Hendrickson was 20 years old at the time and pursuing his degree at Temple University. He recalls being searched and questioned about the reason for him being on the road.
“I felt as though I was harassed because of the colour of my skin. It was a frightening experience,” Hendrickson said. He said this had happened more than once.
Racism denied me a job
Jovan Wilson, a reporter at 284 Media said she did not have to venture to the United States to feel the scorn of racism. She said she experienced racism in her home country.
“I come from a country, Guyana, and racism is a very, very, real issue. Guyana is primarily populated by blacks and Indians, and I grew up in a system where privilege denied me of my opportunity to simply find a job because of my skin colour,” she stated.
Wilson, Hendrickson, and Dr Glasgow decide to share their respective experiences to show residents why it was important for the BVI to join the global Black Lives Matter movement.
Saturday’s march has, therefore, been described as a message that the BVI stands with the global black community in their fight against racial injustice and inequality.
Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
Thank you to the organisers of Saturday’s event. It was very thought-provoking. The speakers were great and it was a very positive and inclusive march and event. Thank you to the team who made it happen.
If you don’t like what happened to you in the US then stay in your racist BVI. Don’t come to the US, don’t go to school there, don’t buy your goods there, don’t buy your food there. Go to Senegal and buy all your needs. Oh and by the way don’t use US currency because the bills all have past slave owners on them. Each time you put a bill in your pocket you sanctify and glorify the past.
Its good that you are reading the site, and you are angry. Just imagine if we don’t buy your goods since you buy from China. I wonder what your economy would be like.
Oh yes the US economy is totally dependent on what the Africans buy from the US. STF down and shut up. Your stupidity is showing.
This past weekend 100 people shot in Chicago. All in the African community and both victims and perpetrators all African. What kind of animals are you. You want to be treated with respect then earn it.
BVINews has turned off the thumbs up button on articles they don’t like. They are afraid to let people voice their opinion. Just like dictatorships in Africa. You haven’t moved far away.
It’s not true that white people do not have conversations about the police with their children.
I’m white and I warned my kids in the same way about the police in BVi.
Profiling is a result of the actions of a certain group. Do you feel the same anxiety when swimming with Dolphins vs swimming with Sharks? If not, are you racist against Sharks?
In the US, black males between the ages of 15-35 make up about 5% of the population, yet commit over 52% of all violent crimes, including murder, rape, robbery….etc…a black male is 7 times more likely to to be a victim of murder….(by other black males), than a white male.
fact: Unarmed black males killed by police in the US in 2018 = 10 total. Of the 10, 6 fought back. Police killing blacks is total BS.
You are 1000% correct. Could not have said it better myself. If Blacks want to be treated like equals then they need to start acting like humans.
You sound like a proud racist!
What part of my comments are racist? Facts are not racist.
All of your comment is racist. A racist perceives black people do not behave human; that is, racists are driven by self-righteous fantasies of white supremacy to believe blacks are not human and do not deserve to be treated equal to humans. Facts: your comments fit the profile of one who refuses to accept the humanity of black people. Time longer than twine!
I have to ask this question. Didnt black lives matter before all this crap? Where was the movement when education took a big hit? Where was the movement when homes were all broken up with single parents? Where was the movement when our young men were involved with gang related violent crimes? Where was the movement when our girls were getting pregnant before finishing highschool? The list goes on yes but why only now because a white man did what he did will we only now want to stand up and march or protest? When we killing and competing with each other, fighting and stealing from each other, why would any other race see us and have respect for us when we dont have it for ourselves? As far as i am concerned BLM is a sham that caught the money train on the reactionary behaviour of black people.
They can’t hear you. Too busy with their agenda to highlight what they want to highlight to take the microscope off of themselves.
Hypocrisy.
The scenario described by Dr. Glasgow is a daily experience by Blacks in America. The key word to get police action and quick response is say the term “ Black.” A Black man or Black woman did XYZ and it is off to the races. Remember Central Park “Karen” who was walking her dog unleashed in the park and a Black man asked her to leash her dog consistent with park policy to protect his children and she called the police on the Black man, for he was supposedly accosting her.
Investigation completed, her employer kick her to curb for lying and making a false racial claim. Further, in October 1994, a Susan Smith told police that a Black gunman had kidnapped her two children. In fact, she drove her car into a lake with the two children in it and then made the false claim about a Black gunman. Think she is still in jail.
Dr. Glasgow lucky he was not framed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, for he would still be languishing in jail. Jails are filled with innocent Blacks who were a convenient solution to a crime(s). Prejudicial judges and juries are quick to believe the police, prosecutors……etc when Blacks are involved. Often Blacks cannot afford bail or skilled legal representation so they are the mercy of the prejudicial judges and juries, joining the growing number of innocent Black people in jail. How many Black men have the Innocent Project freed from death row or life imprisonment?
True, some Blacks do commit crimes as Whites, Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, Pacific Islanders…etc do and should pay the equitable penalties as others for their crimes. However, Blacks are punished more harshly than Whites for the same crime, eg, crack cocaine v. powder cocaine. Whites prefer powder and get lighter sentences when prosecuted; Blacks, higher sentences for crack.
“he lamented that this is a conversation white people do not have to have with their children.”
Or he guessed. It is america everyone has had that talk or experience. It’s not just because you black. It’s because people roam the streets with guns and the police are literally terrified.
I am white and have been pulled out of my bed in my house by gunpoint and naked then handcuffed until I proved I was the resident. If I was black it would be front page news, being white, no one cares.
Make you think much? Probably not right. Better to be a victim
@Confused, stop the pity party. Your @$$ is lucky, for if you were Black you may have been shot and would be pushing up daises. White privilege saved your butt so be grateful.
Total and utterly BS. 10 unarmed black males killed last year in the US. 9 the year before, out of 350 million people? How can you say if your black you’d be shot? The whole BLM is based on falsehoods and gullible minions…..
Blacks are treated better in the USA than in Africa, with many more opportunities……we just had a black President.
This whole movement is globalism, and getting in the pockets of US tax payers, who are the wealthiest in the world due to Capitalism.
To: @confused
“White privilege” does not exist. All US citizens are entitled to equal rights, and therein lies the problem. When inferior whites see blacks exercising their equal rights, they feel oppressed because equal rights is all they have as whites.
Privilege has to do with extraordinary things such as wealth, fame and power. Don’t confuse these with ordinary equal rights.
Stay up.
Well, that’s because I didn’t resist, was polite with the police and they gave me mutual respect, then went on their way.
Maybe if I was black I would have jumped up and down how racist they are and how they can’t touch me and that I was going to sue them, then try to fight with them and try to run away.
Then they would have shot my a$$
If you were white you may
also have been shot. Stop
Trying to present possibilities
as facts to falsely support
Your world view.
If you were Black you would have been shot dead in your bed like Breanna taylor.
you want to pretend that you don’t understand white privilage in America. If YOU WERE BLACK YOU WOULD LIKELY HAD BEEN KILLED. Stop the BS you well understand
If you were black you would be dead and would not get the oppotunity to proove you were the resident.
My parents also had a conversation with me about the police. They told me to respect the police, not resist and fight if confronted with an issue.
You black parents might want to add that in to the conversation.
Yes thank you. So I guess that George Floyd was resisting, yea I saw him kicking the officer while calling him sir.
When will you stand for correcting the wayward ways of our BVI.
That’s a blatant lie. You are trying to say President Granger Government prevent you one of his own from getting a job. Stupes. Shameless. I going to post this to Guyana News.
@the Answer…….Equal to who and what?
Jovan WIlson, if anybody to talk about racial profiling it should be the Indians. I understand the racial profiling is true, but as long as the APNU/AFC has been there they shut down all enterprises in areas where Indians were the majority population. to stop jobs for them – the ones who worked mainly in the sugar industries.
What job was racially profiled for you? ………..
Candace Owens is right. Stop being criminals and half our problems are over. Start building economic wealth and political power as a group and in time ALL our problems will be over.
Exactly, just like the Chinese and the Indians and every other race in America, instead of thinking everyone is against me and trying to fight the system and everyone in it
@Exactly, which race is look at jump street as criminals and murders? Which race don’t get mulligan? Which race Whites conditioned themselves to fear and thus constructed the police to control and to protect their propert.
I don’t know, which race? Now offer me scientific proof that whites fear this race! What on earth are you smoking?
Delegating an entire color of a person to their behaviour is nothing short of racism. If you don’t want people to judge you on your color, then don’t do the same to others. It’s a two way street.
Be part of the solution, not the problem
But why, the police here do not even carry guns? Hmm, something does not add up.
The Living.
This is sad , i am reading all these comments and i just have one thing to say and i would like for us all to take a moment to think about this “ALL LIVES MATTERS.
To say we are not racist by saying BLACK LIVES MATERS give me a break.
As I read the comments on this blog I am truly disgusted. Anyone can be racist but based on my experiences here in BVI I have seen it more from these racist, mostly sour young south Africans. The African Diaspora in the Caribbean and the USA have many issues that are not helped by these racist attitudes. We need to all have respect for each other and try to get along, both African and European descendants. But seriously I have never seen a more sour and racist set of people than the young people we are allowing to come here from South Africa, please put a stop to this. There are racist people from all races and from every country but seriously the level of hatred being spewed here should make everyone who is descent sick.