In My Own Words: Tristen Vance

The sun's inferno blazes strong on an early summer evening: 5 p.m. in Phoenix, Arizona. A rusted red '07 Ford Explorer is in park at the Sky Harbor Airport Rental Car parking lot, just beside the airport; in the heart of the city. The driver is a young man waiting for his family to get back to the car after returning a rental car used for amusement park trip. The young man noticed a fleet of cop cars enter the lot and speed toward his vehicle. Even with no wrong doings or reasons to have fear – the young man knew in his gut something wasn't right. Five police cars surround the red explorer, six officers jump out of their cars; all with their guns drawn. He immediately raises his hands, allowing them to open the driver door. Within seconds he is taken out of the car, handcuffed, and forced to lay down on the roasting asphalt – all guns pointed at him. The young man pleas for reasoning of his detainment, to which the police give no answer and demand silence out of him. About five minutes passes before the officers let him off the ground; but to the young man it felt unending. Thirty minutes pass and the intensity of the situation ascends. The young man wanting answers for being cuffed and the officers silencing him face-to-face confrontation, intimidation with weapons, and threats of jail.
 
The clash halts for a moment, and the young man noticed the officers' intensity change. Finally then, did they state they were looking for "… individuals stealing cars at or near the airport." Also saying, the young man, "… did not fit the description, but was in the area of a crime." In total, over 45 minutes passed before their cuffs were released and he was free to go. Dwelling on the situation on the ride home; his fury more than anything – was not that they put their guns to his back while lying on the searing desert ground, or that he did not even fit their description. It was the fact that his 6-year-old brother was with him and had to watch the entire conflict. Hysterical sobbing and an innocent child at a loss for sense of the world, a scene far too prominent in the black and brown community.
 
The word is trauma: and it has been a main catalyst in the cyclic suppression of a people. The young man experiences the trauma, as his little brother sees the trauma: beginning to formulate his own lack of trust for law enforcement. Progress only begins with authentic information and education, followed by active involvement by all civilians against all injustice. It is time to hear the voices which have been silenced for centuries. It is time to believe the stories of the unheard, unrepresented, and unappreciated. This is Tristen Vance. This is My Story.