Rashad Turner had wanted to be a cop for his entire life — then he was arrested on weapons charges for a BB gun in the backseat of his car, and the police he was working for called him 'dirty.' He founded a Black Lives Matter chapter in St. Paul instead.
On a hot day recently, standing at the edge of St. Paul's Indian Mounds Regional Park amid the crackling of fireworks, he explained why."I remember a time when I was 18," he says."I had these tight gray umpire pants on."
A block from his grandmother's house, he slowed at a stop sign to talk to a young man he recognized from the neighborhood.The kid had been in a fight, Turner says. And as they were talking, police showed up. They checked Turner's backseat and saw a BB gun, which he used for picking off squirrels on the golf course with friends.The officers arrested him and tried to book him on weapons charges.
Even still, Turner kept going. He graduated from the police academy in St. Paul. He decided it was time to leave home. He applied for a job in Tulsa, Okla., and went for an interview. He says he aced the written test. A panel interview followed.
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