photo by Karen Laslo
Steve Eaton wants to discuss policing in Chico.
Steve Eaton is still troubled by what happened to him on the last day of March as he drove down an unmarked residential street in the part of old Chico known as The Avenues.
When he was pulled over by a Chico police officer, he remembers telling himself to stay calm and be polite. Surely whatever problem there was would be resolved quickly. But Eaton says his California driver’s license and an obliging attitude didn’t satisfy Officer Juan Valencia, who contended from the start that the 44-year-old African American man had been driving “erratically.”
Eaton was baffled, and told the officer, “It’s beginning to seem like you’re racially profiling me.” And from there the interaction went downhill — rapidly.