Nov 1, 20173 min
Gulfport, MS — Kelvin Fairley and his wife Natasha Krikorkian are two successful newlyweds. Fairley, a registered nurse, and Krikorkian, a psychiatrist, live in a nice neighborhood with their three children. They have never broken the law and have never given the police any reason to ever interact with them. However, all that changed this week when they were accused of breaking into their own home and Fairley, Krikorkian and their children were all held at gunpoint and arrested.
“If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” This phrase is repeated ad nauseam by police apologists and the police as a terrible defense against those who wish to hold police accountable. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. If you are an innocent family, you can and will be assaulted with a deadly weapon, handcuffed, and berated. Sunday night, the Fairley family found this out the hard way.
“This is why football players kneel,” Fairley said of his horrifying experience as police swarmed his entire family, pulled guns on his children and handcuffed him and his wife. A neighbor had called police to report a robbery and when a dozen cops showed up, they automatically assumed the robber must be the car full of black people.
“I totally think they racially profiled me,” said Fairley. “They never would even tell me why they stopped me. From the moment they pulled us over, there were six to seven police cars. They immediately had their guns drawn.”
Fairley said cops gave him no reason for the stop and were belligerent from start to finish. He said he offered to show police his ID, but they wanted nothing to do with it.
“They wouldn’t tell me what it was about and they held guns on us, even on the kids. And they told us to shut the fuck up. Why would you hold a gun on kids, drag them out of a car and talk to them like that?” he said.
Mistaking Fairley for a robbery suspect may have been a forgivable action, had he been alone. However, in the car with him and his wife were their 16- and 12-year-old sons, 9-year-old daughter, and 12-year-old nephew—hardly a criminal gang.
Luckily, no one was killed during the ordeal and after the cops finally figured out they had committed six counts of assault with a deadly weapon on an innocent family, they were let go, without so much as an “I’m sorry.”
Naturally, feeling completely violated, Fairley and Krikorkian went to the Gulf Port Police Department to file a complaint. Fairley explained to the officer, who identified himself as Sgt. Wilder, what happened. Fairley said all he wanted was an apology and he would’ve simply left. However, he was instead, berated again.
“Obviously you don’t understand our business,” says the arrogant Sgt. Wilder.
“Your business is to protect us, right?” replies Fairley.
Wilder continued, “Our business is, We don’t know who –”
“To protect us, right?” Fairley asked.
“Oh, Jesus, really?” Wilder said.
“Our business is to put bad guys in jail,” says the cop before going on to claim that the Fairley family was supposed to be okay with being guilty until proven innocent. “Until we figure out you’re not the bad guy, we’re gonna handle our business that way.”
Constitutional rights be damned.
“We’re gonna handle our business until we feel safe and we know you’re not the bad guy.”
Clearly not backing down from claiming it is justified to treat people as guilty until proven innocent, the officer soon became even more frustrated and said, “Well, obviously, our conversation is not going anywhere. There’s the form. Fill it out.” He then stormed out of the lobby.
Fairley explained that he would’ve accepted all this if the police had simply apologized. However, that did not happen and he is now going to hire an attorney.
“Last night, I would have been OK with an apology,” he said, “but after what happened at the police department, that’s it. My kids are totally distraught.
“They literally cried themselves to sleep last night. That’s something nobody should go through.
“I worked too hard and put myself through school to protect my family so they wouldn’t have to be in situations like that. To be treated like that by people who are paid to protect and serve, that’s ridiculous.”