A North Dakota man who viciously assaulted three Fargo police officers over the weekend is now facing multiple charges, but it’s the wimpy response by the cops that’s fueling a nationwide debate over racial disparities in policing.
Video footage of the violent altercation shows 37-year-old Joseph Manitowabi cold-cocking all three officers during a scuffle in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, on Saturday afternoon, according to reports.
Despite being punched, dazed, and thrown off balance, none of the officers drew their weapons. The harrowing struggle seemed to defy logic as the three officers stumbled around discombobulated, allowing Manitowabi to flee and making an improbable escape look easy. Even after all this, none of the officers gave chase. Instead, they all took a moment to gather themselves with what appeared to be little urgency.
Manitowabi was taken down a short time later, though the footage doesn’t show his capture, nor whether it was the same officers who arrested him.
He now faces felony charges of preventing arrest, possession of methamphetamine, three counts of assault on a police officer, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He has no known permanent address.
While all three officers suffered only minor injuries, the incident has opened a floodgate of criticism — not about how the officers acted, but about how differently this situation might have ended had the suspect been Black.
Social media critics pointed to high-profile incidents where Black men have been killed by police in encounters involving little or no violence, while Manitowabi’s ability to survive — even after physically assaulting officers — exemplified the kind of leniency that is almost never extended to Black suspects.
Eric Garner’s 2014 death after being placed in a chokehold by NYPD officers over allegedly selling loose cigarettes became one of the earliest high-profile examples of deadly police violence against Black suspects during the social media era.
Walter Scott’s 2015 killing in South Carolina was another turning point. Shot in the back five times while fleeing a traffic stop, Scott posed no threat when North Charleston officer Michael Slager opened fire in a cold-blooded killing. A bystander’s video later revealed Slager planted a Taser near Scott’s body, in what appeared to be an effort to justify the shooting. The footage contradicted the officer’s claims. Slager was later fired and charged with murder. He eventually pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Other cases stand out, like those involving Philando Castile, who was shot during a 2016 traffic stop after calmly informing officers he had a legal firearm; Patrick Lyoya, who was killed in April 2022 during a struggle over a Taser in Michigan; and Jayland Walker, who was shot more than 40 times in June 2022 after fleeing a traffic stop in Akron. None of these men were violent toward police officers, yet all of them were killed even as they never attacked law enforcement.
These examples have long fueled criticism of racial bias, and now Manitowabi’s case has only added more fuel to that fire.
While police officials have not commented on the actions of the Fargo officers, the video stands as a stark visual contrast to the kinds of deadly outcomes that have often followed far less aggressive behavior by Black people.
The current outrage is reminiscent of another controversial moment that played out in Longview, Texas, in April last year. During a traffic stop, a white driver — later identified as Trenton Futrell — was caught on bodycam cussing out a police officer and yelling in his face for several minutes while refusing to comply. The officer did not retaliate, did not raise his voice, and did not arrest Futrell until backup arrived, highlighting yet another instance where extreme patience was shown to a white suspect acting belligerently.
Despite repeated defiance and personal insults, Futrell boldly confronted the officer in an extreme display of threatening behavior. Many felt the situation would have turned out much differently if Futrell were a Black man. But because he was not, Futrell was calmly taken into custody and later released on bond—a glaring example of white privilege in action. The bodycam footage stirred frustration across social media, with many pointing out the vast double standard when compared to the often immediate escalation Black people experience under less hostile circumstances.
Critics argue these incidents have become part of a broader, deeply entrenched pattern where nonblack suspects are regularly given the benefit of the doubt, the time to deescalate, or the option to survive. Black suspects, far too often, are not given any chances.
While law enforcement officials frequently cite officer discretion and the unpredictability of each encounter, civil rights advocates say the disparities in outcomes are no longer explainable as coincidence, and instead point to evidence of systemic racism.
The gap in how Black and white Americans are policed isn’t just about individual bad actors — it’s rooted in a long history and built into the system itself, according to research. From the early days of slave patrols to the enforcement of Jim Crow laws, policing in the U.S. has often been used as a tool to control and criminalize Black communities.
Today, even when laws have changed, the effects linger. Studies show that unconscious biases still shape how officers assess threats, who gets stopped, and how force is used. And because these patterns are baked into department culture and policy, the results can feel less like isolated incidents and more like a cycle that keeps repeating.
A viral post by verified X user @WeAreNotDaSame1 weighed in on the debate by sharing a side-by-side comparison of two police encounters — one involving a white man in Seattle in 2023 and another involving a Black man fatally shot by Atlanta police in 2022.
💢Two Americas told in two different videos below, notice the difference
— 🩸🇺🇲We R n0t Da SaMe🇺🇲🩸 (@WeAreNotDaSame1) July 21, 2024
👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
Not one Black person is in the video to the left, but it's full of Anti Black hate, and white fragility in its fullest form all in one video. The grace and patience that is given in… pic.twitter.com/TYlYbirc4Q
In the first video, a white man is seen attacking a Seattle police vehicle with a baseball bat. Despite the apparent threat and the man’s disturbing appearance, officers maintained distance, did not draw their weapons, and calmly instructed him to drop the bat. The unidentified man eventually walked to his car, but continued behaving erratically. Yet even then, officers showed restraint, as shown in a separate video of the incident posted to Reddit. Backup arrived and, without escalating the situation, gently took the man into custody. No force was used. No guns were drawn.
The second video captures a deadly 2022 incident involving 22-year-old Nygil Cullins at the Fogo de Chão restaurant in Atlanta. Officers were dispatched after a 911 caller described a man with a gun acting erratically. When officers arrived nearly 30 minutes later, Cullins was calmly eating at the bar, with his feet on a chair and a salad in front of him. Police say he had taken a bottle from the bar without paying and refused to leave.
Body camera footage shows Cullins putting his hands up as soon as he turned around and saw the officers, then appeared confused as they took him to the ground. Officers initially kept their weapons holstered, but one quickly deployed a Taser while shouting at Cullins to comply. As Cullins reacted to the stun, he stood up, moved around, and eventually ran through the dining area. As he was tackled near the exit, Cullins allegedly fired one shot after police claimed he reached for a gun in his waistband. An officer responded by firing more than a dozen rounds, paused, then fired several more. Cullins died at the scene, his body riddled with bullets.
In his post, @WeAreNotDaSame1 called the videos a striking example of what he described as “Two Americas” — one where white individuals in crisis are treated with patience, and another where Black individuals, even when not aggressive, face immediate and deadly force.
“Not one Black person is in the video to the left,” the user wrote about the Seattle scene, “but it’s full of anti-Black hate and white fragility in its fullest form. The grace and patience that is given should be studied. If the shoe were on the other foot, bullets would have been sprayed.”
A majority of voices on the thread agreed with his take.
“15 shots fired directly into his body,” one person said, referring to Nygil Cullins. “While the white man damaged a police car with a bat and lived. Welcome to AmeriKKKa!!!”
The investigation into Manitowabi’s case is ongoing.
