Too Violent To Arrest? Sounds About White

You could be forgiven for thinking it was an Onion article.

Or for searching the website where the story was featured, certain that any moment you would find the satire disclaimer, alerting you to the fictional nature of the content.

I’ve been writing and speaking about white privilege for more than 30 years (while living with it quite a bit longer than that), and even I had to triple-check.

But sure enough, the story is true, and the fact that it comes to us from Vermont (officially the whitest state in America) is just buttercream icing on a vanilla cake at the absolute whitest wedding of all time.

As I write this, Burlington police are searching for 33-year old Matthew Kaigle, accused of assaulting a traffic guard and then evading police after being pulled over on suspicion of the assault.

Kaigle apparently slapped the traffic guard before pulling a hunting knife and threatening to stab both that guard and another construction flagger.

After being stopped by police soon afterward, Kaigle was told he was under arrest. At which point, he did the whitest thing he could think of.

No, not ask to speak to a supervisor. Good guess, though.

No, not ask for the badge number and name of the arresting officer. Again, excellent guess, and normally, it would be spot on, but no.

Instead, Kaigle gave it some thought, decided upon further reflection that he wasn’t really in the mood to be arrested, and then he just drove. the fuck. away.

At which point, the Burlington police did the whitest thing they could think of.

They were like, “Hmm, that was weird, but OK,” and let him go.

They didn’t pursue him.

They didn’t shoot him through the back windshield.

They didn’t have other cops lay down spike strips to blow out his tires down the road a bit.

And as of now, they still haven’t found him — in Burlington, where there are maybe fifteen good places to hide, two of which are wine bars, and at least a half-dozen of which are at UVM.

Not to judge a book by its cover, but — ah, screw it, yes I will: Matthew Kaigle doesn’t strike me as a rosé-all-day guy or someone for whom higher education is a big priority.

But the best part of the story is why the Burlington PD decided not to pursue Kaigle.

I mean, sure, car chases are dangerous, and sometimes innocent people get hurt, so I’m not saying it was a bad call. It would be nice if that same calm thinking were on display when the suspect is Black, but I get it, and I’m glad they neither chased nor shot at Kaigle as he drove off.

But the officers’ decision not to pursue wasn’t based on a fear of accidentally hitting a mom pushing her baby in a stroller after leaving a coffee shop or some kid on a skateboard coming out of a vegan bakery — both of which, in Burlington, are distinct possibilities.

According to the police report, they opted to let him go because of his — wait for it — “unpredictable and violent history.”

So, the reason for which you typically snatch folks up is the very reason they couldn’t snag Kaigle.

It’s as if one officer looked at the others and was like, “Is it just me, or does he seem a little too dangerous to arrest? Let’s regroup. Maybe grab a danish and workshop this thing?”

Now, make no mistake, if anyone should know about Kaigle’s propensity for violence, it’s the cops. After all, he has had two dozen run-ins with law enforcement this year. In addition, he’s been convicted of felonies multiple times, including assaulting a police officer.

In May, he was charged with aggravated assault after using his car to forcibly push another vehicle out of his way in a parking lot.

In July, he allegedly threatened someone with a sledgehammer.

Oh, and then, because July has 31 days (so, ya know, extra criming time compared to June), Kaigle apparently punched and kicked a man unconscious in a local park while hurling racial slurs at the victim.

And still, he’s a free man.

It’s almost as if white privilege took out an ad for a mascot, and Kaigle was like, “Sounds like a pretty good side hustle — I’ll do it!” Then white privilege looked at his application, jumped up from the desk at the home office, and was like, “Hot damn y’all! This guy!”

And sure, I know some might say Burlington is a hippie-dippie town filled with leftists, where the police are probably so woke they’re just trying to abolish themselves.

But not so fast.

The Burlington Police Department is more than capable of doing what cops do when they want to, which they do pretty often, so long as it’s policing Black people.

According to the data, racial disparity in the use of force by Burlington police is growing. Today, that disparity is 55 percent higher than in 2012.

As for drivers — like Kaigle became again when he decided he was tired of chit-chatting with the cops — Black motorists are stopped 58 percent more often than white ones, per capita. And when stopped, the Burlington PD searches Black motorists 64 percent more often than white drivers.

Meanwhile, racial arrest disparities between black and white folks in the city are nearly 4 to 1 — a ratio double the national average. There are only two ways to explain that: first, either Black Burlingtonians are nearly twice as criminally inclined as Black people nationwide, or second, white Burlingtonians are just exceptionally law-abiding.

And if you believe the last of these to be true, I would call your attention, once again, to Matthew Fucking Kaigle — who is still zipping around the edges of Lake Champlain the way other locals might if they were late to a Bernie Sanders rally.

And yes, I know, white people do get arrested, as will Kaigle be, at some point.

I say this because if I don’t, one of you is going to slide into my comments with some horseshit about how white privilege can’t be a thing if any white person has ever been arrested or if this story ends with Kaigle finally apprehended.

Because for some reason, you think if it’s not unanimous, working all the time, every time, it’s not real. Or if any white person has a bad day, it must be a myth.

Or, naturally, you’re going to insist that it’s not about race, but class — the disparities in the justice system are about poor people, not Black people. Poor whites are treated just as badly, you’ll bleat, and it’s just rich whites who get away with things.

But do you really think Matthew Kaigle is the son of some modern-day Robber Baron?

Hell no.

If Kaigle were a member of the ruling class, he would never have sped away from the cops in his white Chevy pickup (note, not a Range Rover).

If he were a scion of wealth, he would have done what rich white dudes do in that situation — which is to shout, “Do you know who I am?” then whip out the business card of his dad’s attorney while screaming something to the effect of “Go ahead, limp dick, try me. I pay your salary!”

But no, he did some straight Dukes of Hazzard shit — I mean, if Dukes of Hazzard was set in Montpelier and the Duke boys worked in a maple syrup factory.

Given his lengthy criminal history, Matthew Kaigle remains in the free world only because he is white. And when he doesn’t get many, many years behind bars as a habitual offender, that too will be because he is white.

And when some of you still insist, as you will, that white privilege is a myth — a figment of identitarian imaginations and a con cooked up by race hustlers — that too will be about whiteness. Yours.

Which, in Vermont, is trading high today.

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This post was previously published on An Injustice!.

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