Officer Shares Harrowing Story Of Feeling “Weighed Down” By Sheer Number Of Minorities to Pull Over

Citing that he and his fellow officers often felt “as dismayed and hopeless as any of you,” Iowa City Police officer Greg Davis stood in front of a crowd at the Pentacrest and shared a harrowing story of feeling “weighed down” by heavy military gear and a huge volume of racial minorities to pull over.

“Sometimes, it’s like you’re drowning,” said Davis. “The sheer weight of my military grade weapons, combined with the overwhelming number of black and brown people begging to be harassed can cause me at times, to feel helpless. Between mace, pepper spray, tasers, service pistols, batons, bullet-proof vests, enough ammo to hold our own against a grizzly bear, and enough colored folks running around Iowa City to frustrate anyone, we here at the ICPD are simply exhausted and fed-up. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night just thinking to myself, ‘So many guns, so many brown people…’ These weapons of war are a 50 pound, 1.4 million dollar burden us police officers have been bearing for decades, and it’s time for change.”

Davis went on to describe an incident that occurred in July 2017, where he “just sat there and wept” in his patrol car, fatigued from carrying around his weapons all day and feeling “completely oppressed” by his power over marginalized people.

“Our constant fight against gravity, our struggle to stop every single Muslim-looking person driving down Clinton Avenue—none of it has been easy. But I’ll tell you this much, we’re right there with you. When you all chant ‘I can’t breathe!’ believe me, everyone down at the station feels that. Swamped with minorities to keep in line, shackled with heavy ass equipment used to instigate violence—we can’t breathe either. We can’t breathe.”