Cops arrest black guys in white church in Huntsville, Alabama

Joshua Chukwuedozie Ude and his brother, Chukwudi Udeh, along with a third friend visited Huntsville's First Baptist Church on Sunday. Shortly thereafter, Joshua is handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser, screaming in pain with mace in his eyes while the other two men are also detained, but nevertheless allowed to continue filming him.

What isn't on the video is whatever event precipitated their arrest. On the video the men can be heard protesting their innocence, and the police appear to try to arrest the men without resorting to excessive violence... at least in the beginning. One officer explains to the third man that they were trespassing on the church's property, disrupting a service by taking pictures, and wearing strange clothes. For their part, the church says the men were welcome, but clearly somebody called the police to report them for trespassing on a public church service.

The reality is that First Baptist is a white church close to a densely populated black neighborhood. Police, black or white, like elsewhere in the country, primarily employ themselves by patrolling areas with higher property value and reinforcing the social order. While people continue to argue about whether or not the police's use of force in arresting Joshua was justified, it seems very likely that the men did nothing to deserve being arrested except making some white folks uncomfortable at church.