Mike Boynton Shares His Experience With Law Enforcement From When he was 12 Years Old
STILLWATER – The past week and a half in America, and across the world, has been filled with heartache and tragedy, but also filled with a lot of hope as people around the world are protesting racial inequalities following the death of George Floyd.
George Floyd, an African-American male, died in police custody on May 25 after being arrested by the Minneapolis police department. Floyd was pinned to the pavement by three of the four officers present for roughly nine minutes, during which time, Floyd was heard saying multiple times in videos taken by bystanders that he could not breathe.
In the following week and a half, there have been hundreds of protests across the country and world, including here in Stillwater on Wednesday.
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton was in attendance of the peaceful protest in downtown Stillwater and he spoke with the local media Thursday morning via a Zoom call to discuss the past week.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this; in some ways, I think there’s some positive going on in response to what’s been problematic for a long time,” said head coach Mike Boynton. “A lot of my thoughts have been ‘try to be thorough and mindful of the people and the audience,’ and also understanding that I have a responsibility first as a man and a father and husband, a son, a brother, a friend, then, in my profession, where I am a mentor and a leader for young people who are living through this and will hopefully see things change.
“It’s truly unfortunate that it’s taken so much pain, destruction to really allow people to now start opening their minds, because it’s hard to think people haven’t seen it before. So, I think now people are starting to open their minds and that’s a good start, in my opinion, because if you open your mind, you have a chance to learn. But even when you see things, if you don’t really pay attention because it doesn’t affect you, it’s really hard to be a part of the necessary steps to having things truly be better.”
When Mike Boynton released a statement following Floyd’s death, he mentioned that he had his ‘own frightening experience with law enforcement.’ During Thursday’s Zoom call, Boynton was asked if he’d be willing to discuss his experience. This was the first time the Boynton had publicly discussed what happened.
I’ve embedded the video below, or you can read the transcript just below the video.
“I don't know why I never shared it before, to be perfectly honest. And it really wasn't until, because I never told my parents even this,” said coach Boynton. “So, I think I sent out that message on Friday and it was after a week of really trying to figure out if I wanted to go there publicly and make a statement because I know how to come from a place of genuineness. And it was personal for me just to see what happened. So, I'll give you the story real quick. I was 12 years old. Just kind of riding a bike, like I did probably five times a week it was summertime. So, it was fairly nice out I'm pretty sure I remember having a pair of blue shorts and a great t-shirt. And, you know if, if you've ever been in New York City, the sound of a police siren is like birds chirping in many parts of the country. It very rarely alarms you, especially if you don't think like you're a part of the situation.
So, I'm riding bike and I feel probably maybe 100 yards behind me, I hear police sirens. And I just keep riding along and I hear it for the next 30 seconds a minute or so getting eerily closer to where I am. So, I'm kind of looking around trying to see if maybe here up in front of me maybe something going on and it will make a long story short, what happened was the cop car kind of a jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and I looked over my shoulder just as I saw this happening and couldn't really understand why this was happening. I first assumed maybe the cop lost control of the car. And then they slammed on the brakes just before basically making collision with my bicycle and myself. So, I jumped off the bike, kind of threw my hands up against the building that was right behind me and with a state of confusion, really didn't know what to do for the next several minutes.
“I had never seen this before, but I see three officers get out of one police car. I only knew that two police officers would be in the car at once, so when three officers jump out, I was really more confused and all of them had their guns drawn. So, here I am at 12 years old, and I'll give you this I looked a little bit older, but I was 12, so it's not like I look 28. I mean, I may have looked 15 and again, I got on a pair of shorts and a T shirt and I'm riding a bicycle. So, I clearly don't have anything in my hands that could be threatening or dangerous to anybody and I've jumped off and put my hands up. One officer comes up and grabs me and shoves me against the building, spreads my legs, does a pat now and they start asking questions that I hardly can make out because I'm so flustered at this point. ‘Where are you from? What are you doing here? Where are you going? What's your name? How old are you? Where’s your ID?’ Hardly any of it that I can really answer coherently at the moment. And I feel I know at this point, I'm probably sweating profusely, I may have gone to the bathroom on myself, I don't clearly remember that. I was so nervous. That took about probably 30 seconds, but it felt like forever.
“They sat me down on the ground, they go back [to their car], they’re getting radio calls from other police stations and one of the officers I hear say, ‘Hey, I think we're at the wrong place. It sounds like we need to be a couple blocks away.’ So, the one officer who had me up against the wall said, ‘Hey, sorry about that, you fit the description of somebody who we got a call who robbed a store here recently. And I didn't necessarily make it better, because even then at 12 years old, I was aware that even if I had gone into a store and stolen the bag of potato chips, or I don't know, a candy bar or soda or something; do I need three cops to jump a curb and pull their guns out on me to bring me to justice? And so that that's kind of where it was for me. So, I never shared that. I told my parents about it after it came out because my dad called really, like, angry, wanted to know what happened. The only person I actually has shared that with was my wife, because we've pretty much shared everything that we've gone through in our lives together, and so up until Friday, no one else even knew and I told my team on my staff on Monday when we met.”
