Martin case brings up memory

The Trayvon Martin murder case brought up an old unpleasant incident in my mind. Some years ago, I went into a local furniture shop looking for a particular piece of furniture. The owner of the shop knew me very well as I had treated his son many years earlier. In fact, he recalled how something I told him in the course of his son's treatment helped him to help his son.

After our chat, I went around the shop looking at the furniture. Then suddenly I realized that I had left my beeper in the car, which I had parked right in front of the main door. Not wanting to miss an emergency call by my patients, I rushed to the car to fetch the beeper. Just as I opened the passenger side door, I heard the owner right behind me asking me in a loud voice, "Hey! What have you got there?" As I turned around, he asked again, "What have you got there?" It was obvious that he had followed me suspecting that I had stolen something from his shop!

Here I was, the medical director of two psychiatric departments in the two local hospitals, a well-known physician in town, known to the shop owner for many years, suspected of shoplifting! I wondered if the shop owner would have behaved the same way if a white-skinned doctor had left the shop in a rush? If you were a jury, how would you describe the behavior of the shop owner?

K.P.S. KAMATH, Cape Girardeau