Jordan J. Johnson, 22, is a sophomore at Clark Atlanta University and plays trombone in the school's marching band. He was interviewed by AJC staff writer Rosalind Bentley. His comments have been edited slightly for space and clarity.
It was in 2010, right when I graduated from Westlake High School. We live in Fairburn. It’s only two or three black people in my neighborhood. I came home and the neighbors said somebody had robbed them. They got a flat screen TV, some games.
The next day I went to go get my transcripts from school and I was walking to the bus stop. The police were right behind me the whole time, driving close up on me, just looking at me. It was a black cop and a white cop in the car.
I changed my route to see whether they were going to follow me. They did. I went on to the bus stop and caught the bus.
When I got to the house again, they were still there. They saw my mother drive up and then that’s when they left.
My mom was like, “Just don’t do nothing crazy, just keep on going to school and work.”
The police just kept coming by for a week. They just looked at me real hard, like I was up to no good or something. I just looked at them, like, “What are y’all looking at?” I guess the neighbors asked them to keep coming by to see if there was anything going on.
We’re a real Christian-type of family, go to work, school, hang out with family, that’s it.
It made me feel like they don’t trust me. Or they just think that that’s what black folks do, just rob and steal.
Police response
Fairburn police said they do not have a record of the incident described by Johnson. Police did say that a Fairburn police officer lived in the same neighborhood as Johnson and that the officer usually had a marked car in front of his house. The officer often drove through his neighborhood while on duty. Police said the neighborhood had been hit by burglars and police increased patrols in the area as a result.
