Outrage: Who are we becoming?

There is a special woman I have come to know and love who lives in Ohio. From the first, her soul touched me. She inspires me with her writing and with her life. Her son is a junior at Princeton. He was visiting a friend at Bowling Green State University. This morning I woke up to this post of hers on Facebook. 

My son Mandela was wrongfully arrested and incarcerated last night while sitting on a porch drinking water waiting for his friends to arrive. When he saw the police, he got up and entered his friends' house and called her. She immediately called the police and asked what the problem was. They said "A black male is on your property." She assured them that he was their guest. She told Mandela to go back out on the porch and tell them he was a guest. When he went out the door, they yanked him out the door, handcuffed him and arrested him for "obstruction of justice." He was stripped, showered and put in an orange jumper. It took him 8 hours to get in touch with any of his family. He is traumatized and violated. We are all extremely upset.

There were over 50 comments. Expressions of love and sadness and anger. And then this post: 

We are heavy hearted tonight, and Mandela is feeling unsafe to drive alone at night in this moment. A post-traumatic stress reaction. Prayers please. Thank you for your loving and outraged responses. We do have a civil rights lawyer looking in on this as well as calls to ACLU and NAACP (thanks to uncle Jeremy) and a lot of other excellent advice, but it doesn't stop the hurt we're feeling or change what happened. We're not clear yet what will ever make this right.

I keep thinking 

We are all extremely upset. About the 8 hours. Was there n humanity in any of the people who came into contact with Mandela to connect with him long enough to realize what a mistake they were making? Did no one ask a question to which they really listened to the answer? How dehumanized have the police, have we become?

They deprived him of his rights but they can never take his dignity!