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It could have been racial profiling or profiling based on other characteristics. You know, I could probably think of 24 people I suspect of being involved with drugs and write their names down. All of this would be based on the way they look or act, or maybe some rumors I heard. Cops can do this too, no doubt better than I could. Now if they just had some excuse for searching these people's homes. Oh, hey why not look at electric bills and see who has a high one. That could give the cops reason to search the homes of at least a good chunk of the people they suspect.

Where I live our appellate courts have basically said it's okay for police to pull people over if they suspect the people might be carrying drugs as long as they have committed some minor offense that the police can hang their hat on. That sounds reasonable but this is actually allowed even if the police let everyone else slide for the same infractions. For instance, we've had road work for a couple of years on the patch of interstate highway going through my county. Often one lane of the highway will be blocked by those orange plastic barrels. The traffic tends to be bumper to bumper during much of the day. Almost everyone driving down the road on those one lane patches is technically following too closely. The cops pull over every car with Arizona, New Mexico, or California tags driven by Hispanics or long haired types for following too close, and will only occasionally pull over normal "respectable" looking people unless they have a hunch or a tip. They almost always have drug dogs with them and routinely run the dogs around the cars if people refuse consent for a search. They routinely ask for consent to search in cases where they are dealing with minorities or anyone who remotely looks like they might be involved with drugs. They don't care about the following too close infractions. They are just looking for drugs.

There is nothing illegal about using more electricity than your neighbor. But if courts start allowing this to be probable cause for warrants, you can bet that police will use this in their fishing expedition arsenal, and that segments of our society like young people with the wrong addresses, and/or the wrong hair styles and/or skin color will mysteriously be the ones most likely to be searched because of excessive electric bills.