i read from kevin drum that the charlottesville police force is subjecting black men to a dna test, to rule them out as suspects in the serial rapist case.

here is an essay from a uva grad student who submitted to the test:

It was just after 9pm, and because the local gym was closed and I did not want to miss my daily 30 minutes of exercise, I decided to ride my bicycle around the block, comfortable in the relative safety of my cozy, collegiate neighborhood near UVA. It seems my sense of freedom and safety made someone else very uncomfortable, because according to one of the officers, someone called me in as "a suspicious person riding a bike."

I was incredulous. Riding a bicycle, along a well-lit boulevard, in my own neighborhood is suspicious? One officer seemed brusque and taciturn, waving aside my surprise.

When one of the officers demanded identification, I went from stunned to frightened to angry in the space of a heartbeat. As they called in my name, address, and social security information to several different criminal databases, the three of us stood silently in the dusk, listening to the garbled voice of the dispatcher distill the entirety of my life to a series of dates, addresses, and legal verification.

Satisfied I was not on anyone's most-wanted list, the officer explained that there had been a series of break-ins and assaults around town. The suspect police were seeking was a black male, about my height and weight, and his crimes had occurred here, in the vicinity of the University.

When the officer first pulled me over, he read from the dispatcher's log, and described me, what I was wearing, the bike, and said, "Sounds like a good match to me; you fit the description."

here is a cav daily article on the matter.

i have no comment on the story, but would rather like to bring light to the world o'crap that is the charlottesville police force. they use excessive force. many of them are racist. very racist (did i mention they once arrested wynton marsalis, who was having an on-campus concert, because they thought he was a robber?). they hate free speech. in my four years at uva, i can't count the number of times a police officer was suspended or fired for inappropriate actions.

so this whole dna-testing thing doesn't surprise me. what i would like to know is if they would do the same thing if some frat boy was accused of rape. would they dna test every white frat boy at uva? seeing as that would take them, oh, about 500 years, i doubt it.

anyway, just go to cvillenews.com, search for 'police', and read some of the reports that come up. it's sketchy.