WTF, Again

It’s time once again for WTF, Again, also sometimes called WTF, America. This is a New Mexico edition.

A white family experienced an emergency when a speeding car hit their pet dog. Jumping into the car with the injured animal, they raced for the nearest vet in an attempt to save their beloved animal. Enroute, they sped past a police car, who gave pursuit and pulled them over.

William Albrecht was driving. According to KRQE’s excellent reporting, he didn’t expect what happened next.

“I imagined if he was going to pull me over for speeding, I’d pull over,” Albrecht told KRQE. “He’d say something to me and then maybe even help us get there. You know, I’ve heard of stories like that before, but that didn’t happen.”

No, that didn’t happen. According to video, the police showed no sympathy and little concern for anything except enforcing their police power. The officer ordered Albrecht out of the car at gunpoint and made him kneel. The officer wasn’t interested in what was going on at all. He just wanted Albrecht to do what he was told, reporting that he felt threatened because Albrecht seemed enraged and had clenched fists in the air.

Note that no video support the officer’s story.

More officers were called to the scene, of course, because this unarmed white man and his wife and son were so damn scary, and Albrecht was handcuffed, of course.

Albrecht was especially distraught because they always ‘support the blue’ and feel that they’d done nothing to warrant this police reaction. It’s easy to imagine that if Albrecht was black, he might have been shot, because it’s happened to so many others. I imagine, too, that the city and police force will stand behind the officer and the wall of blue, and many citizens will support the police, because they support the blue.

According to KRQE, ‘BPD’s policy does call for de-escalation, stating, “the level of force employed must be commensurate with the threat posed by the subject and the seriousness of the situation.”. Yes the BPD police officer was clearly working hard to de-escalate that situation, wasn’t he? His situational awareness was just top notch.

Sadly, the dog passed away, a young boy had a traumatic moment compounded because the officer showed no empathy or concerns, and a family has come to understand why fewer people ‘support the blue’. I’m sorry for the family’s loss.