Are You Serious?

The police, who were doing a local sweep of city violation codes happen upon a house with a few problems:

trash in the yard and for having two inoperable vehicles without valid Virginia license plates, according to documents provided by the City Attorney's office. One car was apparently parked in his yard in violation of city code.

Now, what do you do if you are the police? Continue on and move over to the next house in hopes that they don't have any violations? No, you cite the violations. Now let me expand that story and tell how all this breaks down into my little rant. Vice Mayor Paul R. Riddick, here in my own backyard known as Norfolk, complained that the police officers that cited his yard, were, wait for it, that's right RACIST. Here is a man who apparently is a strong advocate of code enforcement, well so long as they don't come and look in my yard. His excuse?

"The only thing I can say is that with all of the nor'easters we've had and with my schedule, I haven't had a chance to pay attention to the yard like I normally do," Riddick said.

"I take a lot of pride in my yard. You can tell by the way it's manicured. This is something that just slipped up on me."

His citations were among 35 handed out during the routine sweep. But good 'ole Riddick doesn't stop there in his rhetoric. Now where did I put that card...I set it right here the other day...oh yeah here it is...THE RACE CARD! On WVEC here in Hampton Roads he states:

constituents continue to complain of abuse at the hands of white police officers. He cited two examples -- In the first case, he said a black police officer told him a white officer abused and cursed at a black woman before realizing she was a member of the force.

In the second case, Riddick said a black woman reported being arrested and given no bond despite being in her final weeks of pregnancy.

“I will not sit by idly and see young black men and young black women mistreated by officers who are paid by taxpayer dollars,” he said. "It has to stop and I plan to use what image I have to bring a stop to this in the community."

That led the Mayor, Paul Fraim to bring up these comments in the local newspaper and state that the police deserve better that Riddick's attack. In each of these cases, we don't have the full story. All we have is that some white person asaulted a black person. Why don't we have the full story? What really happened? We all know that one side of the story really doesn't yield too much of the truth at times. One recent example I can think of is Nifong and a story of a young woman brutally raped by three rich white men, only she can't come up with a story that matches anything called the truth. The mayor went on to state the following:

“Your attempt to play constant victim of circumstances that are racially intended - it's just grown so, we're just over it,” he said.

ll the councilmembers in attendance had some criticism for Riddick. Councilwoman Daun Hester said Riddick could have found a better way to express his concerns. Councilman Barclay Winn accused Riddick of moving the city backwards racially.

“I'm embarrassed that I voted to help make you vice mayor,” he stated.

Finally they came to the conclusion that they need to bring in the police chief. Not a bad move. Riddick showed approval stating:

“I think that that is all I've been wanting someone to say - that they're interested in finding out what's going on and trying to do something about it,” he said.

Can we please put the race card behind us? I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out here in the local news scene.