Cops quiz woman on immigration status

BEL AIR, MD — An Indian American woman in Harford County in Maryland, Aravinda Pillalamarri, was stopped by the police recently while she was walking in her neighbourhood, and was questioned about her immigration status.

Pillalamarri was walking in her Bel Air neighborhood on the morning of December 21 when a Bel Air police officer stopped her.

The officer asked her what she was doing, to which she replied she was walking. And when Pillalamarri asked why the officer was asking her a number of questions, he said someone in the area had called the police.

“Walking while brown?” Pillalamarri said she then asked the officer.

The 47-year-old Indian American, who has lived in the city for more than three decades as a US naturalized citizen, was grilled further when a supervising officer responded to the area.

The officers detained her because she was under criminal investigation.

Pillalamarri, whose parents immigrated to the US when she was a baby, grew up in the city, attended Bel Air High School and told the police she walks in the area every day.

The officer asked why she had no identification on her and if she was in the country illegally.

Pillalamarri relayed her story to the Bel Air Board of Town commissioners at a January 17 town meeting to raise awareness of people’s civil rights.

Bel Air police Chief Charles Moore, who was at the meeting, said that immigration status is not the officers’ concern and asking it is breaking protocol.

The only time immigration status comes into play is following an arrest, Moore said.

In Pillalamarri’s case, there had been a call about suspicious activity and the officers responded.

Moore admitted in the meeting that the officers could have shown more sensitivity.

Pillalamarri said when she was stopped, as an ‘ordinary’ person, she wasn’t up to speed with how to interact with the police.