This morning, I parked my car in the public lot across from the Yale Bookstore, then began to walk across the street for a haircut. A black man, mid-thirties, sat on the pavement, ostensibly bothering no one, not blocking pedestrian traffic, just sitting quietly. A Yale University police officer ride pass on his bike, looks back, turns around, goes up to the sitting man, and begins to ask him questions. I hear the man say, 'I am just sitting for a moment.' I think no more about it, and continue on my way for my haircut.
Half-hour later, my hair freshly cut, I reverse by path. The man is still sitting on the sidewalk. The Yale University police officer--still on his bike--remains hovered over the man, only now joined by a New Haven Police officer whose squad car is doubled-parked. Despite knowing this would not end well for the man, I walked on.
It is said that one definition of a weed is 'any plant growing where you don't want it to grow.' The sitting man is, from the perspective of law enforcement, a mere weed. To be uprooted, removed, and discarded. For some, it is a crime, a public nuisance, simply to sit quietly on the pavement.
Yet, the greater crime this morning was a crime of omission. I, a lawyer and a law profession, did not stop, did not break stride, to inquire as to whether I could be of any assistance to the man. True, doing so would have taken time and, in all likelihood, may not have changed the outcome for the man. Still, what kind of lawyer am I, what can of law professor am I, when, by by ignoring the needs of a man simply sitting quietly on the pavement who is being harassed by the police, I too treat the man as a human weed? A morally suspect one, if not worse.
