Using your legal rights against cellphone searches often depends on ‘who’s in the car’ | Opinion

I’m a reader of The Kansas City Star, just like you, and last week I noticed reporter Joseph Hernandez’ excellent story about cellphones and motorists, and whether the police can search your phone during a traffic stop. I appreciated this story, which provided information to readers that I wasn’t aware of, but one line stood out to me, practically jumping off the page:

“You can say no in Missouri.”

“Say no to the police?” I wondered, half aloud.

There are plenty of people for whom that is not an option.

Many Black people, brown people and others who feel underrepresented in the power structure of society can feel uneasy when questioning the police.

These laws state that police have to have a warrant in Missouri to search your cellphone. In Kansas, you also can say no because the state Supreme Court upheld a similar ruling.

And so, I pondered whether these laws work the same way for everyone. Does the minority population in Missouri and Kansas — or anyone who feels fazed when confronting authority figures — believe they have the right to challenge police? Even if it says they do on paper?

Will the right to say no be equally claimed by Black and brown drivers?

Upon reading about the laws, a memory of my own police interaction surfaced from 2015, before I moved to KC, and it reminded me of the restlessness I felt in that moment.

I had picked up a reporter from the airport who was to be a keynote speaker at my university’s Ethics Conference. The reporter was a white man, who had covered the Ferguson, Missouri, unrest the year before.

As we drove down Second Avenue in Edmond, Oklahoma, blue and red lights flashed behind me. Second Avenue went from 45 mph to 25 as you passed into the small downtown district, and I had not slowed down quickly enough.

The white police officer got out of his car and walked to my driver’s side window. I rolled it down. “Do you know why I stopped you?” he asked. I didn’t answer, tension rising in my stomach. He reminded me that the speed had changed. I apologized. He gave me a warning and let me go on my way.

I turned to my white colleague, eyes wide. Then he said, “It’s a good thing I was in the car,” referring to his whiteness.

We burst out laughing, but our laughter betrayed the stress we both had just experienced. Don’t get me wrong, the officer was as nice as he could be. But we both felt an edge in the car.

Why? Because historically, there has been a divide between police and minority communities.

Let me reiterate, the officer in my example was kind and understanding, yet I still felt nervous for my safety. This was in 2015, a year after some horrific examples of Black people killed by police: Think of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. The next year in 2016, we would see Philando Castile killed during a traffic stop. And years later, 2019 to 2021 would bring the pandemic and another wave of Black and brown people killed by police.

My harmless moment illustrates how saying no to a police officer can be a difficult thing depending on who is in the car.

Don’t believe me? The Pew Research Center does regular surveys on policing, minorities and how Black and white people view police in their community.

Pew reports: “Majorities of both Black and white Americans say Black people are treated less fairly than white people in dealing with the police and by the criminal justice system as a whole.”

The report also found that “Black adults are about five times as likely as whites to say they’ve been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity.”

And Pew reports that nearly “two-thirds of Black adults (65%) say they’ve been in situations where people acted as if they were suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity, while only a quarter of white adults say that’s happened to them.”

The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that police were more likely to stop Black motorists than white or Hispanic drivers. When police did interact, the report found they were “twice as likely to threaten or use force against Black and Hispanic residents than against white residents.”

Finally, the report “The Intersection of Policing and Race” by The Center for American Progress, also has data that suggests that cities must bridge “the divide between communities of color and law enforcement (that) begins by recognizing that discord is rooted in the origins of policing in America.”

It’s a good thing for all of us to know our rights, and know the law. But our police and legal community also must know and understand that some people can find it difficult to apply their rights in the moment, when it counts, and this could present unfair consequences for those drivers or passengers that their white peers would not face.

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