BLM group plans protest after Tri-Cities police pull businessman from car at gunpoint
Black Lives Matter protesters plan to take to the streets Friday over concerns about a Tri-Cities business owner who was wrongly pulled from his car at gunpoint.
The Black Lives Matter Coalition: Tri-Cities are planning to walk across the cable bridge in silence at 6 p.m. Friday after local business owner Joe Thornton was detained by police in a Richland apartment complex parking lot.
“We have been organizing and fighting injustices here in the Tri-Cities under the premise that systemic racism happens to all of us and police brutality could happen to any of us. It did this week,” organizers said in a Facebook post.
Police were looking for suspects in two drive-by shootings. The first shooting was Saturday at 11:30 p.m. on the 3500 block of West Hood Street and the a second less than an hour later on Sunday near Canal Drive and Buchanan Street, Lt. Aaron Clem said. A red Dodge Charger was used in one of them.
Less than 10 minutes after the Sunday shooting, a Benton County sheriff’s deputy saw Joe Thornton drive past him in a Dodge Charger.
The 31-year-old father of two was picking up food from Taco Bell for his family. He was surprised to see the deputy turn on the lights behind him.
“I’m going through everything in my head that could be going on,” he told the Herald.
After he pulled over for the officer into the parking lot of his apartment complex, his girlfriend called. He answered the call and asked her to come out. She did and began recording what happened next.
The deputy along with Kennewick police ordered Thornton out of his car at gunpoint. They placed him in handcuffs and put him in the back of the police car. He believes the only reason it didn’t become worse is because he stayed calm and compliant.
It wasn’t until other people asked what was going on that he learned that police thought he was suspect in the drive-by shootings, Thornton told the Herald.
While he understands that police officers were acting to keep themselves safe, he felt they should have done more to confirm who he was before they put him in the back of a patrol car and searched his Charger without his permission.
“It’s the protocol that needs to be addressed,” he said.
He believes that the person making a call to conduct a high-risk traffic stop should be someone with more authority, and when they determined he wasn’t a threat, they shouldn’t have locked him up.
Thornton is a former personal trainer and the owner of The Biz Talk magazine. He also runs a mentorship program and has been working on a documentary series about other police officers.
While he said he doesn’t feel that he was pulled over for being Black, he feels it was a factor.
“On a personal level it was demoralizing,” he said. “They could have talked to me. … I’m not trying to defund the police. My brother was a police officer. I respect police officers. That takes a lot for an individual to put others ahead of themselves.”
His girlfriend’s video has become the focus of several media reports after it was posted on Facebook. So far it’s been shared 400 times and attracted nearly 390 comments.
Clem said Kennewick Sgt. Jason Kiel talked with Thornton’s girlfriend at the time and apologized. They believe the conversation was recorded, but was not included online.
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 12:44 PM.