A photo taken by an Indiana man during a traffic stop last week has gone viral on social media.
Greg Barnes Jr., of Muncie, Indiana, first posted the image to Facebook Friday. The photo was a selfie he took with a white police officer who had pulled him over for speeding.
“I was pulled over today for speeding,” the post read. “The officer did not know me nor did I know him, but we each showed one another a mutual display of respect in our interaction. He was doing his job, and I had made a mistake in trying to hurry home to get started moving that lead to our path's crossing.”
The image resonated with many on social media, garnering more than 400,000 shares by Tuesday.
I was pulled over today for speeding. The officer did not know me nor did I know him, but we each showed one another a... Posted by Greg Barnes Jr. on Friday, September 18, 2015
U.S. & World
In a time when a rash of citizen encounters with police have taken tragic — sometimes deadly — turns for both civilians and officers alike, Barnes felt obligated to use the experience as a platform to tell the public via social media that the color of his skin had nothing to do with getting pulled over.
“In the end we talked more about how are individual days were going, and the situations and circumstances within our society that have lead to interactions such as he and I's to play out much more negatively, some even deadly, than ours, than we talked about the situation that lead to him pulling me over,” the post read.
Barns said the pair decided to take a selfie to tell their story.
“I can't stress enough that NO demographic and/or profession of people are all bad. Neither of us are the enemy,” he said. “We can continue to fight against each other until we are literally "black and blue", or we can show one another the respect we inherently deserve, not as "black man" and "blue police officer", but as humans.”
