Using my sixth sense

Police academies have been teaching the sixth sense for decades now and it's still being written about in criminal justice textbooks. I, too, was exposed to it when I went through the Tulsa Police Academy. The sixth sense is suspicion and every good police officer develops a healthy dose of it early on in their career. Even after I left the police department, my wife would get on to me when we were going out to dinner or a movie because I would sometimes make us late when I saw what I thought was suspicious activity and would double back to where it was occurring to check it out.

My sixth sense kicked into gear again on my flight from Denver to Chicago over the Christmas holidays. I was sitting at the front of the plane in first class and a young man of Middle Eastern heritage was in the seat across the aisle from me. Before the flight departed, a college-age girl with her foot in a cast was brought up to sit next to him so she could extend her leg outward. The young man seemed very uncomfortable and nervous and wasn't speaking to either me or the girl. We were offered drinks before our departure and he declined. After we took off, he looked over at the girl and then quickly back to me and when he saw I was staring at him, a look of almost panic creased his face. As we climbed towards cruising altitude, he closed his eyes and appeared to be reciting a prayer because his lips were moving. When he finished, he bowed forward three times, opened his eyes and quickly looked at his seatmate and then at me again. As soon as we leveled off and the seatbelt sign was turned off, the flight attendant offered us food and he again declined. He then got up and went into the bathroom. I checked the time when he went in and after fifteen minutes, I called for a flight attendant.

When she came, I told her I didn't want to make something out of nothing but because of the young man's behavior since he boarded the plane, I had become very suspicious of him. She smiled, said she had had the same suspicions initially but because of something I can't print in a family newspaper, she was pretty certain his trip to the bathroom was a legitimate one. Sure enough, a few minutes later he came out, retook his seat and the rest of the flight was uneventful.

This experience pointed out a couple of things to me. First, it's apparent that I haven't forgotten how to use my sixth sense. But secondly and problematically, it caused me to use all the stereotypes that have been drummed into our heads almost daily since September 11, 2001, that led me to suspicion a young man whose only sin was the color of his skin. I've been conflicted about what I did and what I said to the flight attendant ever since because I saw the same thing happen on numerous occasions while on the police department except the suspicions then were directed towards African-Americans rather than Middle-Easterners.

I've kept asking myself if my suspicions were valid, even though they proved to be false and I come up with opposite answers about that too. Was the young man truly acting suspicious or did I become suspicious because of his heritage and, consequently, drew conclusions about him that I wouldn't have drawn about a white-skinned person? Of course, there's no way I can answer that because it's a chicken and the egg question. I obviously was concerned enough about his behavior that I alerted the flight attendant and I honestly don't know if I would have done that had it been anybody other than a person who I thought was from the Middle East.

Also, when he saw me staring at him and I saw a look of panic in his eyes when he did, I concluded that the expression on his face reflected a concern that he might have been caught doing something that would have put all of us in imminent danger when the look may have simply been a reflection of the daily persecution he feels by many Americans based on his appearance and religious beliefs.

I can say that for a period of 30 minutes or so, I was concerned for the safety of everyone on the plane and that's what led me to think what I thought and do what I did. Better safe than sorry I've often heard but sometimes being safe comes at an innocent person's expense.

Something I've consistently taught my students to never do.