Tonight while watching the news, I heard something that really stood out to me. KXMB was running coverage of the sentencing of 17-year old Jeff Brown Otter for a crime spree a while back. What caught my ear was not the report, but what I heard on the 911 recording. It was played for the court, and a portion of it aired during the KX report. The women who he carjacked had run to a nearby house and called 911, and during the call they exclaimed that it was “Indians” outside.

I’d just like to ask a quick question: if someone forces you to take them somewhere against your will, using a shotgun, and firing a shot in the air as they leave...what does their race matter?

Stating someone’s race to help identify the perpetrator of a crime is prudent, but the voice on that 911 recording sounded to me like they were especially traumatized that the person who had just fired a gun while stealing their car was of Native American descent.

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