Can we see your papers, please?

This story from Alternet reminded me of a recent experience:

My wife and I spent a couple nights down on the Bay at a Calvert County AirBNB a couple weeks back. We'd exhausted ourselves selling and donating and gifting about 95% of our worldly possessions in preparation for moving internationally, and needed to go someplace to get our heads together in peace and quiet.

One day we visited Point Lookout in St. Mary's County and spent a couple hours walking around the shore watching wildlife. On the way into the park we'd noticed police pulling people over but hadn't really thought much about it. Inside the park several Latin families were swimming, having cookouts, and fishing from the pier. When we left the park we were pulled over for "speeding," though I was only doing 30 MPH. The cop who pulled us over had a couple conflicting stories. First, he said "We are pulling everyone over today." Then, he said "The speed limit is 15 here and you and the caravan behind you were doing 30--no big deal, we are just reminding people of speeding." There was no posted limit coming out of the park. Then I noticed that all the cars behind us which had been pulled over also had already been waved on. He chose to run my license, however.

The real reason had nothing to do with speeding, but because my wife is a person of color. The cars which were waved on immediately had only Caucasians inside. The police held my license for about 15 minutes and then gave me a warning for speeding and let us go.

This was an ICE operation, though the cops were in cars marked Maryland National Park Police. They were flak-jacketed militarized cops. They were polite and professional, but they detained us because of race, and under false pretenses. And the stated reason they were pulling people over was a facade. Presumably a "patriot" and "good citizen" felt uncomfortable with the number of Latin families in the park and called the cops?

At any rate, it doesn't take three police vehicles with six officers and a K-9 unit to do a speeding sting on a small park on the Chesapeake Bay.