Breaking Through Systems of Injustice

My earliest encounter with law enforcement was when Kern County sheriff’s deputies pulled my cousin and me over in the fall of 1993. They pulled us out of vehicle in middle of nowhere and pushed my face in the gravel. I could taste the bits of rock pushing on my lips and teeth as the deputy asked, “Where is the knife?” And for the third time I assured him that I didn’t have a knife. We were eventually released that night and drove home, but that would not be my last encounter with the sheriff’s department.