Black College Student Could Spend 15 Yrs in Jail Over Checkout Line Dispute

The Washington Post reports that:

ST. LOUIS -- Nearly three years after Heather Ellis switched checkout lines at a southeast Missouri store and touched off what she calls a racially charged dispute with white customers and authorities, the young black schoolteacher faces a trial that could send her to prison for 15 years.

Witnesses have told authorities that Ellis cut in front of waiting customers at the Walmart in Kennett on Jan. 6, 2007, shoved merchandise already placed on a conveyor belt out of the way, and became belligerent when confronted, according to court filings.

Ellis maintains she was merely joining her cousin, whose checkout line was moving more quickly. She claimed in a written complaint to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that she was then pushed by a white customer, hassled by store employees, called racial slurs and physically mistreated by Kennett police officers.

( . . . )

Ellis' written account to the NAACP describes [her] and her cousin getting into separate checkout lanes before Ellis switched into the faster-moving line. The woman behind them had placed items on the conveyor belt, and Ellis alleged the woman pushed her when she tried to put her own items down. WaPost

It seems to me that one person in a checkout line often holds receives more goods for which to pay while another person in their group grabs more things off of the shelf. If the white woman behind Heather Ellis did shove Heather, why wasn't she arrested and charged with assault and battery? If the skin colors of those involved had been exchanged, would the white woman have been arrested instead of the Black woman? These are some of the questions regarding color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior that must be asked in cases such as this one.

AOL News reports, posting the same AP story, that:

Officers eventually followed her to the parking lot, she said, using racial slurs and telling her to go back to the ghetto. As her aunt and uncle drove into the parking lot, Ellis said, the officers "jumped" on her even though she said she was not resisting.

If the police referred to Heather Ellis using color-aroused epithets, that certainly would demonstrate color aroused ideation, emotion and behavior. Police who demonstrate color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior in public should be screened for Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) before their verbal insults lead to jumping on people, and jumping on people leave the victims of police brutality stone-cold dead on the asphalt.