"I still don't like the look of this whole situation," Collins said.
"What don't you like about it?" Marcus asked. "I'm a blind man with a white cane walking to a coffee shop I visit regularly. What seems suspicious about that?"
Collins couldn't articulate what bothered him because the real answer was racial bias: he saw a Black man and assumed criminality; everything else was just rationalization.
"I think you're being evasive," Collins said.
"How am I being evasive? I've answered every question, provided identification, offered to verify my information, and explained exactly where I was going and why. What more would you like me to do?"
The crowd of bystanders was growing larger. Someone had called the local news station; a reporter was on the way. Social media posts about the encounter were already starting to circulate.
Collins noticed the crowd and became defensive. "Everyone needs to move along! This is police business!"
But people weren't moving along. They were witnessing what appeared to be harassment of a disabled man, and they weren't comfortable just walking away.
An elderly woman approached Collins. "Officer, I've seen this young man walking this route every week for years. He's blind. He's just going to the coffee shop."
"Ma'am, I need you to step back," Collins replied.
"I'm trying to help you understand that you're making a mistake," the woman persisted.
Collins was now dealing with a situation that was spiraling out of his control. The longer the encounter continued, the more obvious it became that he had made a serious error in judgment.