By Chris Benevento, News Staff

A search for cigarettes ended in 12 shots fired and 60 year-old Roy Middleton in the hospital requiring extensive surgery on his leg.

Checking his mother’s car for cigarettes at 2:45 a.m. Saturday in Escambia, Fla., Middleton said that he heard a voice ordering him to put his hands in the air. When he turned around he was met with a hail of bullets, one of them finding its mark – shattering a bone in his leg.

The incident occurred after an unnamed neighbor reported Middleton (assumed to be a burglar) to police. Given Middleton’s testimony and the fact that he was unarmed, it remains unclear why the police opened fire – and why with such intent to kill.

This shooting comes at a bad time in Florida with all of the tumult over the Trayvon Martin verdict and the lesser-known Jordan Davis shooting of last November.

In both cases 17-year-old black youths were assumed to be “thugs” by adult men (who were not black) and gunned down. The latter simply because the car he was in was playing music loudly and his killer, Michael Dunn, hated “thug music.”

Now I don’t know anything about the unidentified neighbor in the Middleton case; however, I can’t help but feel that the call was not partially fueled by Middleton’s race (black).

While I accept all of the other circumstances – it was dark, it was his mother’s car – I also realize the commonality of what he did.

How many of us haven’t gone out to a parent or friend’s car to grab something late at night? For most people, if a friend or relative asked them to go outside and retrieve something that they left in the car, it’s no problem. It’s nothing more than any other favor. So why is Middleton lying in a hospital bed right now? Why have two other black youths been buried at 17?

In my mind, the answer is racial profiling and stereotyping.

Over the years media and pop culture in America have created stereotypes and profiles for all races. While these stereotypes can be unfair and incorrect, they are not the real issue. The real issue is people heeding them.

Observing differences in cultures and customs is important in society. Being able to respect those differences is a key component of peaceful coexistence. It would be wrong to ignore our differences. However, when this acknowledgement includes stereotypes a larger issue begins to take shape.

There are people in the world who are too quick to adopt these stereotypes as doctrine and the result can be deadly.

While my life has never been threatened and I’ve never been shot at, I know the sting of being the victim of racial profiling.

A few weeks ago, I was surrounded by several cruisers while working in Brookline collecting pictures of street signs for an inventory. I was asked for my identification (calmly and professionally) and eventually I was able to confirm that I was indeed working for the town.

When I asked why I was being questioned, I was informed that a woman had called me in because she thought I looked suspicious. I soon saw the woman in question still on the phone with the operator. When the officer I was speaking with informed her that I was just working for the town, the woman merely said “oh” and walked off – no apology.

While I never got to hear the woman’s actual call, the officer informed me that everyone was on edge after the Marathon bombing. So I had an idea of what caused the incident – my appearance. I’m mixed race – half Jamaican and half Italian. The mix gives me a darker skin tone with Mediterranean features. I also sport a dark beard as well. To the untrained eye I might be mistaken for Middle Eastern, in fact I have been multiple times in the past.

While I would never say that was the actual cause of my particular incident, I am allowed to consider the possibility seeing as my partner, who is white, was not questioned or reported at all.

Like my incident, Roy Middleton’s was born out of some kind of confusion. Whether it was racial profiling or not, too many assumptions were made and it resulted in the use of deadly force – all for a cigarette.

Chris Benevento can be reached at [email protected].