Posted on 05/29/2014 10:07:29 PM PDT by Altariel
In the summer of 2010, a young black man was stopped and questioned by police on the streets of Miami Gardens, Florida. According to the report filled out by the officer, he was "wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves” giving the police "just cause” to question him. In the report, he was labeled a "suspicious person.”
He was an 11-year-old boy on his way to football practice.
A Fusion investigation has found that he was just one of 56,922 people who were stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens Police Department (MGPD) between 2008 and 2013. That’s the equivalent of more than half of the city’s population.
Not one of them was arrested.
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"I have never seen a police department that has taken the approach that every citizen in that city is a suspect. I’ve described it as New York City stop-and-frisk on steroids.” said Miami-Dade County Public Defender Carlos Martinez.
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Fusion’s analysis of more than 30,000 pages of field contact reports, shows how aggressive and far-reaching the police actions were. Some residents were stopped, questioned and written up multiple times within minutes of each other, by different officers. Children were stopped by police in playgrounds. Senior citizens were stopped and questioned near their retirement home, including a 99-year-old man deemed to be "suspicious.” Officers even wrote a report identifying a five-year-old child as a "suspicious person.”
Fusion’s Investigation also found evidence that some field contact reports may have been falsified.
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"You're essentially saying you have reasonable suspicion to stop everybody in your community. That's crazy, because that means they're exercising no discretion,” says Martinez, the Miami-Dade public defender.
(Excerpt) Read more at fusion.net ...
bttt
Wasn’t Traydmark from Miami Gardens?
Why would you wear a hoodie in summer?
“Why would you wear a hoodie in summer?”
I’ve been asking that question for many years in L.A., including today.
MAYBE THEYRE JUST TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY YOU EVER CONSIDER THAT HUH
< |;)~
I wear hoodies all the time. I have hearing aids and the hoodie provides decent cover in case of rain. I don’t wear hats and umbrellas are too cumbersome.
I’d be the the 6’5” white guy with grey hair wearing the hoodie. I prefer cotton over synthetic windbreaker type garments, zippered rather than pullover.
Miami Gardens is one of those neighborhoods around Miami where most of the homes have bars on the windows.
I've seen wrestlers trying to make weight trying to sweat down to a goal... No great detective work on my part - the "XYZ Wrestling" often seen on the sweats is a giveaway. ;-)
Murder, theft and assault are crimes.
Be careful in making the argument (or suggesting) that police are justified in this by an innocent person's clothing (or accessory choices.
The "suspicious" clothing or accessory will one day change, as it has before:.
But perhaps this time, it will be:
It’s simply cops out of control on our way to a full police state. They’ve apparently been told and are being trained to believe they are all powerful and can do anything they want. And I doubt there is any mention of the constitution in the police training.
There are still way too many people in this country who subscribe to the “if you’re not doing anything wrong, why object” theory along with the “cops are always right” crowd. One day soon all of them will find out cops are wrong lots of times.
Your call, Nully - no crippled bystanders or dead dogs...yet.
Either the mosquitoes are really bad, or you are trying to hide from the security cameras...
In the summer of 2010, a young black man was stopped and questioned by police on the streets of Miami Gardens, Florida. According to the report filled out by the officer, he was “wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves” ...
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Why, in the Summer in FL, would someone be wearing sweatpants, a hoodie and GLOVES?
When in the Navy, I spent two Summers in Mayport (considerably North of the Miami area) and our clothes would be soaked with sweat only a few minutes after stepping outside.
the crime rate is double the national average....with a murder rate of 23 per 100,000 compared to Calgary with 10X the population @ .02 per 100,000...and still the City fathers dodge the real issues and deflect the responsibility
Whenever I read an article about how so many blacks are in prison or targeted....I think of Richard Pryor’s line....
“Thank God We Got Penitentiaries.”
“Wearing a hoodie is not a crime.”
Exactly. And, while I cringe when I say this...the ACLU should’ve been in that neighborhood holding “Know Your Rights” classes for the citizens.
“Am I being detained, officer? Am I free to go, officer?”
Maybe even encouraging video recording of incidents...to be used as evidence in the later civil rights violation trials.
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