Jordan Gibson, 20, is a junior at Clark Atlanta University and a member of the school's marching band. He works part-time as a security guard and is an intern at a bank. He was interviewed by the AJC's Rosalind Bentley. His remarks have been edited for space and clarity.
Back when I was 16, I was walking with my friends to a recreation center down the street from our house, maybe 20, 30 minutes walking distance. I live in Riverdale.
That same day there was a shootout with a cop and another student that happened. I guess the cops were still trying to find the person.
My friends decided to keep going to the rec center, but I changed my mind and started walking by myself back home. On the way back a white cop stopped me and just started questioning me, randomly. He was firm, not really aggressive but trying to get his point across. He asked me, “Where were you between the time of such and such, during the shoot-out? What are your affiliations to who we’re looking for?”
I was like, “I don’t know anything about it. I was in school, just about to get out.”
Later on, I learned that the person they were looking for was a guy who was Chinese and black and he wasn’t even my complexion.
So they’re looking for somebody that’s not even the same complexion as me, or even looks like me, so it’s like you stopped me just to give you something to do. Are you trying to put me in that situation because I look like this?
It definitely made me more wary of cops.
I understand. I’m a young black man, I wear braids. For so long my parents told me, braids have a certain profile. But I’ve been wearing them for seven years now and I’ve always been determined to change the perception of me. I’m not going to be that thug that you think I am just because I wear braids, or that unintellectual person that you think I am just because I look like this.
Instead, I am a black man, in college, nearly about to graduate. I have two jobs and I’m making my way through school. I work security for one job and at a bank for the other one. For the bank, I’m an intern.
They let me wear braids as long as I keep them neat and as long as I look presentable.
Police response
The interim police chief in Riverdale told the AJC he searched the department's records going back six years but found no record of the encounter Gibson describes, nor did he find mention of Gibson's name in any other context.
