Albany

Officer George Brice, his muscled and heavily tattooed biceps crossed firmly over his chest and flak jacket, offered a raw, real-life scenario of how a traffic stop might go down for an audience of 35 Albany teenagers.

Brice said if he pulled over a group of kids in a car, smelled marijuana and spotted in the ashtray a roach — the extinguished butt of a marijuana cigarette — the next few seconds and the attitude of the teens would influence the outcome of the police stop.

"If you are respectful and cooperate, I'm going to tell you to throw the roach away, wish you a good day and send your on your way," Brice said.

As he spoke, there was a burst of muttered hostility from several boys in the back of the classroom and an undercurrent of disrespect.

"If you get all cocky and give me attitude, I am going to write you up for every possible ticket in the book," Brice said. "And if you continue to argue and disobey my orders and fight, fight, fight, you could lose your life."

In response, Officer Nicole Reddix, one of several police department members at the workshop, deadpanned: "Make it easier for us. We don't want to deal with all that paperwork."

There was a ripple of laughter among the youths as her joke lightened the mood.

The at-times heated exchange among cops, teens, lawyers and youth advocates stretched across nearly three hours Friday morning at Capital South Campus Center. It was part of a legal rights workshop led by the Center for Law and Justice for 100 youths working in the city's Summer Youth Employment Program.

There was tension, spoken and unspoken. Cops suggested placid compliance was the safest, best course in a confrontation with police. Lawyers countered that the teenagers should exercise their rights to demand an attorney, refuse to answer questions and not be coerced into signing any statement.

The discussions were tinged with anger, confusion and heartache stirred by a paroxysm of racially charged gun violence over the past three days, including fatal shootings of black men by cops in suburban St. Paul, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., and a sniper's massacre that killed five police officers in downtown Dallas on Thursday.

"The country is really corrupt right now and we've faced racism since the time of slavery," said Keduse Morgan, who will be a freshman at Green Tech High Charter School in Albany. "Cops are killing innocent people, but we can't start shooting cops. Violence is not the way to go. We need to unite."

He said he had never been stopped by police, but the workshop gave him good tips on how to react if he ever is detained by cops.

"Keep your mouth shut and say you need to have a lawyer," said Stephen Gottlieb, a professor at Albany Law School who teaches a class on constitutional law. "What's convictable is what can be proved. We all know people convicted who were innocent. The point is to try to stay out of trouble in the first place. Don't expect a lawyer will be able to fix everything after the fact."

The teens were shown videos of mock encounters between young people of color and cops, which spurred further discussion.

"Are all cops hot heads?" one girl asked. "They all seem so aggressive in the videos."

"Unfortunately, justice is not blind," said attorney Jessica Gorman of the Center for Law and Justice. "The neighborhood you're in matters in terms of how the cops act in a stop."

Bernard Bryan, an attorney and president of the Albany branch of the NAACP, emphasized legal rights during a police stop. "We're all saying we want you to survive and to err on the side of caution by de-escalating the situation," Bryan said.

At the end of the workshop, Brice rattled off "basic rules" for cop stops.

"I need to see your hands. I need to know you're not a threat to me," he said. "Coming in with attitude only makes it worse. If I say move away from the car, don't plant your feet. You move away. Comply, so you live through the situation."

Afterward, identical twins Sydney and Taylor Kimbrough, both 16 and seniors at Albany High School, expressed mixed emotions. Their father, Kelly Kimbrough, is a retired Albany cop who is now a member on the Common Council who represents the 4th Ward in North Albany.

"I learned a lot of nuances I didn't understand before, but I'm really sad about the killings going on now," Taylor said.

"I'm glad my dad's retired and I don't have to worry about what could happen to him on the job anymore," Sydney said. "I feel the pain on both sides of the killings."

Alice Green, executive director of the Center for Law and Justice, tried to put the week's devastating events into context for the teens.

"It's all so heavy, but I wanted to let the kids talk about their feelings about Dallas and Louisiana and Minnesota," she said. "Everyone is feeling frustrated, worried and in pain. We need something dramatic, like a Marshall Plan, to address racism. I tell the kids do not turn to violence, but also don't give up. I invoke Martin Luther King and urge them to continue the struggle and protest in a peaceful way."

The workshop ended and the teens scattered out into Arch Street under a searing noontime sun, their eyes locked onto cellphone screens, two blocks from the police station. They checked texts and social media posts and tried to process the grim, whorling rush of violence in America.

It was only the start of what portends a long, hot summer.

pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl