A Band Director, A Taser and A Lot of Difficult Questions

It has become all too easy to list the multiple situations where interactions between the police and black citizens have gone wrong, and usually it’s easy to blame the police. But there are also many situations where placing blame is not easy: cases that are not so…black and white. What I see on the body cam video released by the Birmingham Police Depart after an incident that happened at a high school football game on September 14th falls in that category where it’s difficult to know who to blame

According to the body cam video, the game between Jackson-Olin High School and Minor High School had ended 18-20 minutes before the incident involving the band director from Minor occurred. Johnny Mims, and the band director from the other high school both agreed that the bands would continue playing music for a few minutes after the game ended. However, for reasons that are still not clear, the police began clearing the stadium. The Jackson-Olin band (the home team band) stopped playing. The band form Minor continued to play (sort of a new twist on the line from the song American Pie).

This is when things got ugly. A police officer confronted Mims, who told the officer several times to get out of his face. Someone turned out the lights. Police attempted to arrest Mims. There was a scuffle of some sort and an officer tased Mims several times while people nearby (likely members of the band) screamed. Once again we have a situation involving a black man that never should have gone in this direction but…I struggle with this one and I have questions for both sides, but I honestly lay blame first at the feet of the band director.

Did police overreact? Would they have treated Mims the same way if he was white? (Something Mim’s  attorney asked during a press conference.) Who turned off the lights and why were police in such a hurry to clear the stadium? These are all important questions but I think another question outweighs them all. Shouldn’t an educator set an example of respect for authority as well as respect for another person?

My expectation of a band director is to set an example for the members of the band and for all of the students in the school. Telling a police officer (or any other adult) to get out of his face is not setting a good example. What would he have done if one of his students told him to get out of their face for one reason or another? Yet, he just taught them all that this is okay. To expect police to simply ignore this level of disrespect is to ask for his students to treat him in the same way. This is not what we want and is not the lesson that an educator should teach.

For more on this story see coverage on CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/us/alabama-band-director-tased-speaks-out/index.html

For the police body cam video go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nvbnvjutGA