Posted on 11/27/2014 2:21:28 PM PST by Kaslin
Black anger that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was not charged for killing Michael Brown stems partly from the fact that blacks in America often face much worse treatment from cops than whites do. Only rarely do whites get an unpleasant taste of what minorities have to swallow.
A few years ago, when my middle child was in college, he had a summer job in New Mexico. Returning home to Illinois, he drove into Oklahoma, where he was pulled over by a highway patrolman.
He said my son was going 57 mph in a 55 zone, asked him to get into his cruiser and questioned him about where he was coming from and where he was going. Then the trooper said he'd like to search the car.
My son was reluctant, but eventually decided he had no choice but to agree. The officer thoroughly inspected the vehicle, which he damaged in the process, and found nothing.
With that, young Chapman was allowed to go -- without a speeding ticket. But 20 minutes later, another trooper followed him for several miles and pulled him over for an "improper lane change."
My son recounted his previous encounter to the officer, who made a call to confirm it and then explained why he was worthy of so much law enforcement attention: He was a young adult male in a car with an out-of-state license plate and a college decal, driving solo on a major drug trafficking route (an interstate highway) -- as if those factors proved anything.
What the trooper didn't mention is that from a distance, because of his dark hair and complexion, my son might be taken for Hispanic. In any event, he let him leave -- again, with no citation.
If you want to know why many black residents of Ferguson, Mo., distrusted cops even before Brown's shooting, you can assume that practices like this play a role. In 2013, 86 percent of all the traffic stops there involved African-Americans, and they were twice as likely to be subjected to vehicle searches as whites who were stopped.
The Ferguson police search blacks more often even though they are far less likely to be found with contraband than whites. These disparities are typical of vehicle "consent searches" in other jurisdictions.
The searches are known by that term because they may not be conducted without the agreement of the motorist. (If the cop has "probable cause" that he'll find evidence of a crime, he can search without asking.) But it's a joke. Few drivers are willing to say no.
Why would anyone -- particularly someone with illegal cargo -- cheerfully agree to have his car ransacked? Because he figures it would be worse to antagonize an armed cop, who might ticket him, arrest him, plant incriminating evidence or even shoot him. In Illinois, about 90 percent of search requests are granted.
Some states and cities have recognized that these requests are inherently coercive and unfairly target minorities. So they have restricted such searches, requiring "reasonable suspicion" of a crime and written consent from the driver. But those limits may be a false comfort.
The Illinois State Police says its officers request permission only when they have reasonable suspicion. But Harvey Grossman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, says what the term encompasses is so elastic that "it's no impediment at all."
It's also a lousy guide. Consent searches in Illinois yield contraband in 18 percent of searches. In Missouri, the hit rate is just 24 percent.
A lot of innocent people are delayed, inconvenienced and even humiliated because a cop had some flimsy and usually mistaken basis -- or because the officer's racial biases, conscious or unconscious, set off false alarms. What looks to cops like aggressive law enforcement often looks to victims like harassment and vandalism.
Police are not very good at overcoming those prejudices even when they're revealed. Illinois has been collecting and publishing racial data on traffic stops and searches since 2004, and disparities persist.
It's clear that the only way to protect motorists from being pressured into unwanted, racially skewed searches is to forbid the misnamed consent searches entirely. If cops have clear grounds to think a crime has been committed, they can search anyway. If they don't, they should mind their own business.
Why do so many blacks and Hispanics see the cops as enemies? Because in situations like these, they are.
FTA:”even though they are far less likely to be found with contraband than whites”
That does not pass the smell test. Where do you go fishing? You dont go back to your favorite fishing hole because you keep coming up empty handed.
I used to drive to work on a secondary road for a 3am start time in a really crappy car. I got to meet every state cop who patrolled the area. They pulled me over just to check what I was doing. they barely even pretended to have a reason. One copess actually said she had a hard time keeping up with me in her crown vic. I laughed and asked her how badly she thought my car would be destroyed if I actually exceeded 50 mph on the heavily frost heaved road. It's hard to see the difference between the cops today and highwaymen of an earlier time.
I am sure there are bad cops, just like there are bad lawyers and doctors. My most egregious experience was getting ticketed for going 68 in a 65 zone in Ohio. That was soon after the Feds agreed to raise the max from 55 to 65 provided the cops showed they were enforcing the law.
Every other time I have been stopped, I was obviously guilty of speeding, running a red, etc. No complaint. The cops were usually professional, although some started with an attitude. I was always polite and cannot complain about my treatment at the hands of the police.
I am white, 62 and probably look like an old hippie, except that my hair is short. In my experience if you treat cops like they are humans, they will treat you the same way.
... in US crime statistics, when a Hispanic is a victim of a crime, he’s recorded as black; when a perpetrator, he’s recorded as white.
Now it all makes sense. FBI UCS is the origin, of the term, "white hispanic."
Cheers,
OLA
I’m white and can relate to biased policing.
When I was in my early 30s, I was stopped by police going home on a Sunday afternoon after I returned from a newspaper box where I picked up a newspaper, the road was empty and a police car behind me turned on the siren and pulled me over.
The officers asked me to consent to search my car and they inspected my backback for contraband found nothing but my college textbooks and to add insult to injury, the officer proceeded to write me a ticket for driving too slow.
I felt angry, humiliated and aggravated - that I was given a BS traffic ticket even though the road was empty of traffic, I wasn’t endangering any one and not even speeding. I was forced to go to the court, fork over a lot of money to go to traffic school to keep my driving record clean.
If police officers wonder why even law-abiding people see them as an enemy rather than as a friend, bogus police stops are very much a part of the problem. Would you like to meet someone who goes out of their way to inconvenience and humiliate you and cite you for something you didn’t do? I don’t know why I was pulled over that day.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong except the cop following saw no one else and decided to meet his quota for that day. And things like this absolutely have to be curbed. There are justifiable traffic stops and then are sadistic ones in which the officer wants to show he can put you in jail if he has a mind to.
Things like this have happened to all of us at one time or another and my guess if minorities get far more of that on the receiving end than whites do. So they don’t view as pro active police work, they view as petty harrassment and an attempt to try to get them in a compromising situation. Not every one behind the wheel is a thug or a criminal.
Biased policing does exist and its something one knows personally has happened or someone they know.
Yup.
I’m not the only one who has faced treatment because we were younger drivers that seemed to happen for no reason whatsoever.
Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate the police and the hard work they do to keep us safe.
But profiling us and making stops that don’t contributing to reducing crime lowers the police’s image in people’s eyes and it diverts resources from tackling real crime.
If there is a valid reason for a traffic stop, sure. Just don’t pull people over because they fit a profile or they’re driving a little too fast or a little too slow.
Or...
African-Americans were twice as stupid as whites and allowed their vehicles to be searched.
If you refuse to let them search, they might make you wait until a drug sniffing dog arrives.
But usually, since they have no probable cause, they just let you go, because they have no way to get a search warrant.
The cops have been running this same “search” scam on your airport luggage and on late night I-95 vehicle traffic since Reagan was president, and probably before.
My advice to Blacks?
Watch fewer Black movies and Hip-Hop videos.
Watch more Court TV and reality Cop and Jail programs.
You will actually learn something about the law and how to protect yourself.
When a Hispanic is a crime victim, he is recorded as Hispanic, not Black.
You are correct about Hispanic perps.
They are counted as white.
So, if a Hispanic gang banger murders a Black gang banger, that counts as a “white” person murdering a Black person.
If a Hispanic murders a white, that counts as a white murdering a white.
If a white murders a Hispanic, that counts as a white murdering a Hispanic.
The FBI statistics are manipulated to make non-Hispanic whites look more violent and more racist than they really are.
In fact, non-Hispanic white Americans commit murder at a rate that is only slightly higher than the rate for whites in Western Europe.
I think that any community black, white, yellow, brown ,liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican should have the right to petition to have no police coverage in their area.
Looks like I was half right. See zeestephen's Post #50:
Hispanic perp is counted as white (I had that right);
Hispanic victim is counted as Hispanic (I had that wrong).
Maybe he would approve of the TV game show FAMILY FUED which has a black host (Steve Harvey). There are two families competing against each other on each episode. Now, since approximately one eighth of the population of theis country is “African American” I would expect that a fair representation of that would be one black family on each four episodes which would be one family out of eight. Instead, what you will see is one black family on each episode with extremely rare exceptions, you would normally have to watch many, many episodes to see one without a black family. If you see an episode with a hispanic or oriental family the other family is likely to be black, not white. Black families are featured at about a four to one ratio to their percentage of the population. I call this a blatant example of discrimination IN FAVOR of black people but I seem to be the only person who has ever noticed it.
I could just about guarantee that if black people started showing up in proportion to their actual percentage of the population they would start claiming they were being discriminated AGAINST even though it would not be true but none of them ever seem to notice when the discrimination favors them. You can glance in the door of any government office in this part of South Carolina and see very quickly that there is discrimination in hiring. I would estimate that more than three quarters of the employees are black and I am trying to err on the low side.
They're manipulating the stats, but not as much as I thought.
“Look stupid, act stupid, walk stupid, talk stupid, dress stupid... guess what? You’re going to get a NEGATIVE response, period!”
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Absolutely, when I see someone with his underwear hanging out and his belt halfway between waist and knees he looks like an idiot regardless of skin color. The same with having tattoos all over, especially on the head and neck, the same with speaking in a slurred monotone that sounds like random noise with no discernible words, the same with expressions like “three thousand percent LESS”. It all looks and sounds stupid and skin color does NOT enter into it. If you don’t respect yourself why should I respect you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oab4ZCfTbOI
Blacks also represent 12.5% of the total population but make up half of the criminals convicted of crimes; therefore being about 5 times more likely to commit a crime than a white. So, it appears only being searched twice as much is actually less than half the actual crime rate they cause. Seems fair to me.
When my oldest son first got his driver's license, he got stopped regularly, 2 or 3 times a week and car searched too. This went on for a while and I got an appointment with the chief of police to complain.
All he could tell me was it was because of his age and looks (long hair) he said that he had a 17 year old son too and that his kid was stopped and searched regularly too.
Today, my son is a member of that same police department, minus the long hair.
Well then, best stay out of New Jersey!
A “With respect, officer, you do not have my permission to search my car” resulted in a search anyway, and the LEO lied to the Grand Jury, saying I had consented to the search.
All on a bogus speeding stop. Why, yes, I had Virginia plates on my car. Imagine that!
From a PM I received about this thread, I cleaned up the spacing to make it easier to read:
I wish I could say you are wrong. I do know these things for a fact. I was a Trooper for over 30 years and have been retired quite a while, but I always taught and instructed those under my supervision that the person you are confronting today could be on a jury of one of your cases tomorrow and even in a case against you for killing someone in the line of duty.
I always tried to sell a ticket when I gave one and for sure I treated people with respect as long as they would allow me to. I never received a complaint over my abuse of anyone but of course I received a complaint about a ticket or two. I never received a complaint that I would not have been willing to be polygraphed over but I certainly would have requested the person complaining to have been polygraphed also. I even asked to be polygraphed once but was not afforded the request.
I have never had any doubt I worked for the public, but I also always had the feeling I was in some way accountable to those who got killed where I was working. It is tough to sleep at night after you have investigated an accident where someone died and it was even tougher when it was folks you personally knew.
So it runs deeper than most people realize. I personally apologize to you and any other person that has been treated like this and as a Supervisor I didn’t condone it!
My response to the above PM:
Thank you for your honest and heartfelt response. You are the kind of cop that I grew up with as a child. Unfortunately, the honorable, civil, thinking cop has gone the way of the dodobird, and we are stuck with the steroid filled jackboot thug, for the most part.
The more police actions I see going on even in my small city of 300,000 frightens and angers me.
I would love to tell you that it will all be okay, but I fear for where this could and likely will end up.
Robert Peel, they forgot your basic rules!
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