The Officer Forced an Elderly Black Woman Outside, Unaware Her Son Was the Chief of Police

From across the street, Pastor Moore stepped out of his truck. He kept the phone raised high. His voice was firm but controlled.

“Officer. Officer. That woman is a senior citizen. You’re hurting her. Please stop.”

Dawson’s head snapped toward him. His eyes went hard and flat like two stones.

“Back up. Right now. Unless you want to be next.”

“I’m just asking you to—”

“I said back up. You’re interfering with an arrest. One more word and I’ll cuff you too.”

Moore raised his free hand in the air, palm open. He took one step back. But the phone stayed up. The camera kept rolling. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Dawson turned back to Wilma. He shoved her forward the last few steps until her body hit the side of the patrol car. The metal was hot from sitting in the morning sun. She felt it burn through the thin fabric of her dress against her hip. She flinched and tried to pull away. He pushed harder.

“Hands behind your back.”

“Please. What am I being charged with? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Resisting arrest. Obstructing an officer. Now put your hands behind your back before I put them there myself.”

Resisting arrest. She hadn’t resisted a single thing. Obstructing an officer. She hadn’t obstructed anything. Both charges were invented on the spot. Fabricated from nothing by a man who couldn’t handle the fact that a seventy-two-year-old Black woman had the nerve to ask him why.

He grabbed her left wrist first. Twisted it behind her back. The metal cuff clicked shut. Cold. Tight. It pinched the swollen joint where her arthritis was worst. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Then the right wrist. Click. Done.

Wilma Taylor stood handcuffed on the sidewalk of the street where she had lived for forty years, in front of houses owned by people who loved her, with her Bible lying face down on the ground behind her. One shoe missing. Her glasses gone. Her purse emptied. Her dress wrinkled and dusty from being shoved against a car.