Even White Privilege Didn't Save Gabbie Petito

I have been thinking about the Gabbie Petito case for a long time, following the news stories, the blog posts, the social media, the viral publicity her tragic case garnered. While I acknowledge that Gabbie, being an attractive, young, blonde, white woman helped her case gain national attention, I do not resent the publicity her case, and every bit of minutiae about it has received. Being white did not save her from the violence of a white man, even after the police were called. I am thinking in particular of the body cam video of the police stop of Brian Laundrie that played over and over again in the evening news, and how different it was from the body cam video of Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Daunte Wright, and a mind numblingly long list of Black people in videos in police stops getting shot in a continual sickening loop. Seeing the movie portrayal of a Black police officer in the Gabbie Petito case when the officers were actually white seemed to me a grossly misguided case of color blind casting. Casting a Black man in the role of Officer Daniel Robbins served as a kind of erasure of the racial bonding at play between him and Brian Laundrie. How has it completely escaped the public's notice that Brian Laundrie's white privilege is what allowed him to convince the police that he, not Gabbie Petito, was the victim, and ultimately led to both of their deaths?

The police were very casual and polite to Brian Laundrie after seeing him drive erratically on the road following up on two calls reporting a man hitting a woman. Some quotes from the police transcript of Brian Laundrie's stop:

Officer Robbins: Driver is showing some obscure driving, possibly intoxicated. Currently doing 45 miles an hour, zone through here is twenty-five. Oh, subject just hit the curb...

When they finally stop him:

Officer Robbins: You want to place your vehicle into park and go ahead and turn it off for me...Do you mind if I take your keys and just put them on your hood?...Do you want to tell me about hitting the curb..Yeah, it took quite a bit to catch up to you...You don't have anything in your pocket, or anything like that do you?

Compare that to the police stop for Sandra Bland:

State Trooper Brian Encinia: "Hello Ma'am. We're the Texas Highway Patrol and the reason for your stop is because you failed to signal the lane change."

Moments later she was ordered out of her car and arrested because the officer did not like her attitude. Shortly after that she died in custody, by presumed suicide. Philando Castile was pulled over for a busted tail light, and ended up fatally shot by the police in front of his girlfriend and her child less than a minute later because he disclosed that he had a license to carry a fire arm as he was complying with the order to show his license and registration. In those cases it took far less than speeding, and driving erratically to enrage the police.

I can't help but think of how differently things might have turned out if Brian Laundrie was treated like a Black man. They would have presumed he was a dangerous criminal, cautiously approaching the vehicle with weapons drawn, barking at him in a commanding tone to put his hands where they could see them. He would be made to show his license and registration, disclose if he had weapons, ordered out of the car, patted down, cited for speeding, driving erratically and failing to stop, given a ticket, arrested, possibly even shot. Because Brian was white, they treated him like a man having a bad day with a difficult emotional woman, something they could bond over as men. They disregarded Gabbie's terrified, shrinking body language and her eagerness to accept blame that gave no indication of of aggressiveness. They decided he was the victim, though he laughed when they told him this, and gave him a hotel room for the night. They gave Gabbie a pass for her "abuse" of him, rather than arresting her. If Brian was Black, the police would not have dismissed the witness accounts of him hitting her so easily. He would have been made to face the consequences of his actions, one way or another, and Gabbie might still be alive. Brian might even still be alive. If it is so difficult for a clearly distressed white woman to get protection and justice from the police, how much more difficult it must be for Black women and women of color.