Nate Davis - On Local Police Relations (clip)

Nate Davis: And, South Estes, which is off 15-501, the Estes Drive public housing used to be called Ridgefield. That’s one of the public housing areas, and when some of our friends had moved down that way we would go down there and–but, when we got ready to come home, as we were walking the police would not stop and say, “Who are y’all? Show me identification. Where are you going? What you been into?,” they would say, “Do y’all need a ride?”, because they knew where we were going. They knew we were leaving Ridgefield, coming uptown, whether we live over in Northside, or down by Knolls Development, or down in Tin Top, they would [ask] – “Do y’all need a ride? You guys need a ride?” – and they would give us a ride and bring us up here. ‘Cause they knew we were not trying to rob or steal or anything like that. And back then, the police, they knew all of us. They knew all the guys and the ladies, and they’d just stop us and say “Nate, Joe, Gary,” whoever it was, “do y’all need a ride?” And they would bring us uptown and put us out, and we would go home, and we would sit there and talk with them. I remember one night, we were up on Graham Street. That’s when they had a little restaurant up there and we were talking to a police officer and we heard some gun shots. I had no idea where they were coming from and we were getting ready to step back so he could go and whatever. But he said, “I’m enjoying sitting here talking to y’all, I’m not going right now.” He said “I think what we’re talking about right now, some of the things you guys want to do in Chapel Hill as far as start a basketball league, and things like that, not saying it’s more important than what’s going on right now, but I think this is something I want to listen to.”