Jussie Smollett was a trailblazer.
While most people consider Smollett’s alleged harebrained hate crime hoax a crime against the good, white taxpayers of Chicago, he should actually be applauded for breaking into a lucrative industry that is dominated by Caucasian competitors. Aided by the trusty injustice exposure tool called Google Alerts (wielded correctly, it can be used as a Bat-Signal for racism), I’ve discovered that white people have managed to corner a very interesting emerging market:
Blaming black men for fake crimes.
As noted British children’s storyteller Richard Martin Lloyd Walters (aka Slick Rick) once noted: “This type of shit happens every day.”
A few years ago, after reporting on a story about a black man who spent years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit I set a daily Google Alert for the term “black male.” (I forget the name. Maybe it was Lamonte McIntyre. Or Lamar Johnson. Or Richard Anthony Jones... There are so many!) I did it as a precautionary measure because, as a black male, I wanted to know which places to avoid so I wouldn’t be named as a suspect. I quickly discovered that not only were there a lot of searches for vaguely described black men, but there were also a startling number of falsely reported crimes ascribed to a random “black male.” (...Or maybe the wrongfully convicted man I forgot was Marco Contreras. Or Shaurn Thomas. Or Desmond Ricks...)
I had to find out more.
So I set another Google alert for “false police report” and discovered that police initiate dozens of investigations into crimes that didn’t actually happen. And the suspect in the fictional infraction is usually a black male. Because of the way America municipal laws are set up, the cases usually go unreported by local and national media. However, a simple search for “false police report” reveals that there is a disturbing nationwide habit of white people using nonexistent black men as scapegoats for their unseasoned shenanigans. (Perhaps I was thinking of Ledura Watkins. Or Wilbert Jones. Or Sabein Burgess…)
Anyway, here are some examples that happened just this week.
Since Christmas Eve, investigators in Centralia, Illinois, have been desperately searching for the thug who stabbed a 24-year-old man during a botched carjacking, Southern Illinois Now reports. Police Chief Greg Dodson says the case received “widespread media attention,” so officials conducted an extensive investigation, including a three-city search throughout Central Illinois looking for the “masked black male” who committed the heinous crime. Thankfully, they finally found their culprit:
A white dude.
On Thursday, Centralia police arrested the man who was stabbed—24-year-old Kody Biegeleisen—for felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report. Authorities also arrested 23-year-old Justin Landreth for armed robbery and aggravated battery for allegedly stabbing Biegeleisen four times in the incident.
…[A]fter a two-month investigation that involved cell phone dumps and a search warrant being executed at a Salem address, it was suspected that Biegeleisen was involved in a sex for money/drugs arrangement.
According to [Centralia Police Chief Greg] Dodson, the female subject involved eventually cooperated with the investigation.
When Biegeleisen met the female, she was accompanied by two male subjects, one of whom was apparently Landreth.
They then allegedly robbed Beigeleisen, with one witness saying Landreth stabbing Biegeleisen multiple times.
After the arrest, the chief noted that the false report instilled a “false sense of fear and trepidation” in the community.
(Wait….Perhaps that wrongfully imprisoned person I was trying to remember was Elvis Brooks. Or John Bunn. Or Jamaal Trulove…)
Down in Texas, police ended their search for a “skinny black guy” who tried to rob and kidnap a woman at gunpoint from a Cleburn, Texas, Walmart parking lot, according to the Times-Review.
Instead of calling the cops, Dovie Cheyann Mosher took to social media on Jan. 21 and informed her community that she had just been accosted by a thin black male, who put a gun to her head, demanded her wallet and told her to leave the baby in the car and go with him. You know how those thugs do.
But Mosher wasn’t taking this fictional crime lying down. According to her account, she turned into She-Ra, Warrior Princess and fought off her attacker with the help of the powers of Greyskull. She insisted that Walmart cameras had captured the entire heroic episode.
Y’all know she was lying.
Mosher never notified Walmart or the police about the incident. But when the cops contacted the Wonder Woman of Texas, she recounted the experience to investigators as she filled out an application to become the first white member of the Dora Milaje. After police reviewed the parking lot footage and conducted an investigation of witnesses, they arrested Mosher on Wednesday for a Class B misdemeanor for making a false police report.
The Dora Milaje has rejected her application.
This happens a lot in Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin Police Department issued a crime warning on Thursday after a man was hit over the head and robbed of his wallet and cell phone. Police immediately broke out the K-9 unit, began scouring surveillance video and interviewing possible witnesses. The warning described the perpetrator as a “black male in his mid-20s with a thin to medium build, approximately 5’9” and 180lbs, with a full, scruffy beard and short black hair. He was wearing a tan shirt, a black hoodie, blue shoes, and blue jeans.”
Wait… Was that me? That description fits me almost perfectly. I’m a few pounds lighter and I’m not in my mid-20s but compared to the way white people age, all black people are 27 until they turn 70, in which case they’re 45 (Thank you melanin!) Was I sleep-crime-ing? (It’s like sleepwalking, but more sinister. And yes, that is an actual legal defense used successfully by white criminals.)
One day later, police arrested 57-year-old Darren DeLaOssa for false reporting, WKOW reports
And it’s not just black men who are blamed. Black women get it too.
On Sunday, CBS58 reported that a man was robbed at gunpoint by a “heavy set” black woman in her 30s who knocked on his door asking for help. When the man answered, the woman supposedly pointed a gun at his face and forced her way into the man’s home, along with a Hispanic man in his 20s.
The Waukesha, Wis., man later admitted that he lied about the incident, explaining that he was trying to meet women online and things didn’t go as planned. He was booked and released for obstructing an officer and filing a false police report.
These stories don’t usually make headlines because the justice system works differently when you’re white. Plus, the charges are often reduced and many media outlets have a policy of not reporting the names of people who commit misdemeanors. But the sheer frequency of this phenomenon is testament to the subconscious criminalization like David Robinson, Lawrence McKinney, David Robinson, Malcolm Alexander, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam or Tullie Hyman or...Wait. That’s it! I remember now!
After a supposed “forensic expert” fabricated the results of a DNA test, Jimmie Gardener served 26 years of a 33-to-110-year prison sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.
Anyway…
White people be lying, yo.
That’s all I was trying to say.