Teen taken from dance teachers

[Kheldarson]

Because she was white and the two men were black.

The teenage student and her instructors were heading to Houston for a dance conference. They stopped to figure out directions and ended up falling asleep.

When they woke up, they were surrounded by cops who put the girl into handcuffs and turned her over to CPS, despite the instructors having notarized letters from her parents giving them temporary guardianship, having her original birth certificate, and getting in touch with the girl's parents.

The HPD is currently being questioned on their blatant racism.

What a horrible experience for these three on what was supposed to be a fun weekend!

[Andara Bledin]

I find it appalling that the cops questioned the parents' fitness for allowing their daughter to leave the state with people they trusted who happened to be *gasp* of another race.

[hinakiba777]

Wow, that poor girl. That had to be traumatizing. Here she is travelling with two adults that both she and her parents trust, and suddenly she is handcuffed taken away from the only people in the state she knows, and taken to CPS. That is messed up.

So would they have done this if the two instructors were female? I feel like it might have been the double whammy of both instructors being men and another race, which is just sad. I mean even if it appeared suspicious they had ALL the required documentation. I really hope there is a follow up and the officers involved are reprimanded or something.

[gremcint]

Why did they handcuff her? if they thought she was being kidnapped why did they handcuff her?

[Kheldarson]

Why did they handcuff her? if they thought she was being kidnapped why did they handcuff her?

I don't know. I haven't found any follow up articles, but all the articles say she was handcuffed, and few mention that the teachers were too. I think, at base level, there was an over-reaction and nobody stopped to check themselves.

[SkullKing]

Why did they handcuff her? if they thought she was being kidnapped why did they handcuff her?

If I understood correctly, they thought she was a runaway, after she defended her teachers, and thus handcuffed them to prevent her running away.

Which shows their unwillingness to accept that there could be a legitimate reason
for a white girl to be with a black man.

[Kelmon]

To be fair, this might just as well be misandrist instead of racist. As in two adult men with a girl can only be up to no good, regardless of skin color. Of course the skin color helped showing that the girl was most likely not related to the men, but that's just incidental.

Wouldn't make it better, and certainly doesn't explain why the officers kept going after they read the letter.

[s_stabeler]

To be fair, this might just as well be misandrist instead of racist. As in two adult men with a girl can only be up to no good, regardless of skin color. Of course the skin color helped showing that the girl was most likely not related to the men, but that's just incidental.

Wouldn't make it better, and certainly doesn't explain why the officers kept going after they read the letter.

could well be both, actually.

[crashhelmet]

Why did they handcuff her? if they thought she was being kidnapped why did they handcuff her?

I can only think of a few reasons

Some jurisdictions require everyone that rides in the back seat of a squad car without any type of security barrier between the front and back seats to be cuffed, regardless or presumed guilt or innocence. Some require it even if the car has the barrier.

As a runaway, they could've believed that she would try to run again and so they cuffed her.

She may have given them the impression that she was going to try and physically defend her two teachers.

[wolfie]

What would have happened if the group in question had been the same make-up as one of the sub-families in "Modern Family" (gay couple and their adopted other-race daughter)? In that case, there would be NO "contact the parents" option, since the (in the eyes of the law) parents would be in jail on kinapping charges.

[Jester]

While I don't agree with it, I could see arguments for the cops' actions....up until they contacted the girl's parents, who told the cops the situation, and the cops still continued to treat the whole thing as a crime, rather than what it was.

Once you talk to the parents and the confirm the girl's and the instructors' stories, byt what logic or right can you continue to treat the situation as a crime?

Answer: none.

Personally, I hope the cops involve get bitch slapped by the system, up to and including losing their fucking jobs. These are not the people I want serving and protecting, especially in the city where one of my nieces lives. Fucking racist pieces of shit.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I read an article about this on a very conservative website, specifically so that I could read the comments posted to see what people were thinking. What I noticed was that many, if not most, of the people were latching onto the statement that these two dance instructors were taking her to Houston to do hip-hop dancing in a rap video. To them that screamed irresponsibility, because they were assuming that this meant the violent, bitches & ho's, drugs and guns type of rap music, so their impression was that these parents were in denial about what their daughter was involved in. I am wondering if the cops were thinking along the same lines.

I have good friends who live in Tulsa, and through them I actually know who the two dance instructors are. They are both quite well known in the Tulsa area for their involvement in Gospel/Christian hip-hop and rap music. They were taking her down to shoot a Christian rap video, and the girl's parents knew the guys from attending church with them. Someone else from Tulsa noted this in the comments, and many others were surprised and their reactions were much more reasonable after learning this.

I found this very interesting---it was the cultural implications that freaked a lot of these conservative commentators out more than the racial implications. Of course, their assumption that all rap/hip hip is immoral music can be seen as a racist sentiment itself, but I thought it was an interesting twist.