A Virginia police chief is trying to set the record straight. A video of one of his officers pointing a gun at a group of high schoolers after prom has gone viral.
What should have been a night of excitement and celebration turned to confusion and frustration, according to Myah Tate, 17.
In the video, posted on Facebook, you see a Newport News police officer pointing a gun at a black car, with students inside, according to Tate.
She told WTKR that people gathered at City Center at about 2 a.m. Sunday after the prom wrapped up in Hampton.
You can hear Tate repeatedly demand that the officer give her his badge number, but he ignores her.
“What’s your badge number? What’s your badge number?” she yells.
“Back up,” another police officer told her.
The video then shows the driver rolling down his window with his hands up, as the officer approaches him with his gun still drawn.
“What broke me is realizing people will watch Black fear in real time and still somehow find a way to call US the problem …. I stayed because they were HUMAN,” Tate wrote on her Facebook. “And because in that moment I knew exactly what fear looked like in their eyes. That type of fear doesn’t leave you.”
Tate told WTKR she wants an explanation for the officer’s actions.
“We want to know why the gun was being drawn to the boy or the car, period,” she told WTKR.
During a 50-minute news conference on Tuesday, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew discussed the video.
“You have to be careful. You have to be very careful and responsible when showing a small clip, a snipper if you will, of an entire incident and then make a judgment,” Chief Drew said during the news conference broadcast on WAVY. “But I also understand that if that’s all you see, it would be normal to have those conversations and ask questions.”
Chief Drew said he wanted to be as transparent as possible and add context about the incident.
WAVY reported at 2 a.m. Sunday, officers responded to calls about a large group of minors hanging out of windows and dancing on top of cars at a parking garage at City Center.
In a video shown during the news conference, people were seen hanging out of windows, including one woman who was even dancing. The video was independently reviewed by the Atlanta Black Star.
Chief Drew told the press that at this time of day, the city curfew and no-trespassing signs come into play.
He claimed one of the officers smelled marijuana on a car that was leaving the garage, and he stepped in front of the car to stop it. WAVY reported that the officer asked the driver to pull over, which they did, when a second car zoomed up behind the first and drove toward the officer.
Chief Drew said the officer was worried he would be hit by the second car. The officer was dealing with three issues: the first car that was pulled over, the second that was possibly going to hit him, and a third person filming the situation.
WAVY reported the officer pointed a gun at the driver because he thought he was going to be hit. The driver told the officer, “I just want to go home.”
Myah Tate wrote on Facebook that the chief was doing nothing but “making excuses.”
“I love you, Chief, and everything you do for the community and me, but I’m not going out without a fight,” Tate said. “I will not settle for a ‘my officer thought he was going to get hit’ when it’s clear as day he was not.”
According to her Facebook, Tate is a rising leader in her community, advocating for young Black people in Newport News, Virginia.
She is the founder of the Ellis Everlasting Foundation, created in honor of her friend whose death was wrongfully labeled a suicide, according to her Facebook.
“Some of y’all will never understand what it feels like to already be mourning something while it’s happening in front of you,” Tate said on Facebook. “To already be thinking about funerals, hashtags, mothers crying, and another name added to a list that should’ve never existed.”
Atlanta Black Star reached out to the police department for more information, but has not heard back.
Tate had originally agreed to be interviewed by the Atlanta Black Star, but she stopped responding.
