Dashawn had never been to prison, but had had his fair share of encounters with the police, especially when he was younger. In the summers, officers would stop and frisk him every day. Most recently, Dashawn and a friend had been walking too close to the University of Chicago’s campus when they were immediately stopped by the University’s police officers. The officers were looking for a young black man with a backpack who had been breaking into cars, but when they saw that Dashawn had worked with AmeriCorps, they let him go.
Dashawn said the kids he grew up with didn’t usually report it when they saw someone breaking the rules, including police officers not following department regulations. But now that he was older, he was worried that people in the neighborhood like him were not using the complaint-filing process enough.
“You shouldn't feel like this is normal, you know what I mean?”
— Dashawn Oliver, 27, church staff