The heavy metal cuff snapped shut on my left wrist before I’d even had time to put down my fork.
“Hands behind your back, right now!”
Sheriff Dalton Voss’s voice boomed across the little diner like a thunderclap.
The whole restaurant went silent. Forks clattered onto plates. People froze with food halfway to their mouths and stared as this big, thick-necked lawman pinned my shoulder against the red vinyl booth.
I didn’t flinch, and I didn’t scream. I sat perfectly still with the cold steel biting into my skin and calmly finished chewing my bite of fried catfish.
My name is Amara Whitlock. I’m forty-four years old, born and raised in Georgia, and for the past six years I’ve served as a United States District Judge. But in my denim jacket and braided hair, Sheriff Voss saw a Black woman he thought was powerless, alone, and completely at his mercy.
