The NYPD Just Won’t Stop On Frisking
The New York Police Department’s stop and frisk tactics had increased 21 percent over the past year, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The findings are from a departmental quarterly report that was released to Congress on Tuesday, and also show that a stunning 88 percent of those stopped were black and Latino.
And this isn’t just happening in New York, or just with frisking…
I was talking to a black woman at a professional work-related function and she just matter-of-factly talked about the circuitous route her husband takes to drive home from his night job. Turns out the direct route took him through a part of town where he was stopped by the police so often for no reason, that it was worth taking a longer route to get home sooner. She made it sound like it was a routine thing, no big deal (and that really angered me).
Pingback: Tweets that mention He fit the description… - Drug WarRant -- Topsy.com
I don’t know how anyone could deny that laws are applied with racial profiling. Only bigots or people supporting their own agenda could be that obstinate.
Pete,here is the rebuttal video to stopprop19’s video you did the article on the other day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bcerl13PKo&feature=player_embedded
My friend Peter is African American. He is an aerospace engineer from Kenya, and his wife is a tenured professor at the state university here. They live in an upscale suburb, in a large, landscaped house. They have three children and have lived here for over a decade.
Peter is stopped two to three times a week and his car is routinely searched. And because of his accent he actually has to call his (caucasian) wife to come verify he lives where his license says he does! This is a small community with only a few cops, and he has been stopped by these cops repeatedly. Yet everytime they stop him, delay him for sometimes hours and search his car. I routinely see cars pulled over in that ‘burb with young African American men lined up on the curb while the dog goes through their car.
The drug laws in this country were concieved by rascists, written by rascists, and today they are enforced by rascists. The Jim Crow laws weren’t as effective or insideous.
Pete, you shouldn’t be shocked.
White people never get hassled by the police and never have to present their papers.
Frito Chalupa, white people do get hasseled. But not at the rates blacks do. Did you watch the video? When’s the last time YOU were stopped and frisked? I was stopped and frisked once thirty years ago….I wasn’t in my neighborhood, it was three in the morning and I was walking down a deserted street where there had been recent (as in that night) burglaries.
To compare that to being REPEATEDLY stopped and frisked, in broad daylight, absent any suspicious behavior, within sight of your own house is a stretch. I bet you’re the guy who thinks the police never arrest an innocent person. If that were the case, we could just do away with all this lawyer-judge-jury-fair-trial nonsense and have the police take ’em directly to prison for as long as they see fit.
Or perhaps it’s their own damn fault for being black.
Can you spell Class Action Lawsuit?
It has been a couple years since i was groped and fondled and reminded of the freedoms evul muslims hate me for. I fit the description walking through a sportsbar parking lot just after a brawl. Officer judge’s bitchboy cuffed me until a drunk err I mean bar patron told the pork patrol donut stuffer I was not the one who had beat two people to a pulp out behind the bar.
Every black prohibitionist should be ashamed of themselves.
I’ve got to admit I’ve had a curve ball thrown at me wrt the profiling issue. Two of my dearest friends are men of color, and work as welders as well as live in West Baltimore. One is 41, the other 50 so they’ve been around the block a couple of times. Neither has ever been profiled by the police. If you don’t know what West Baltimore is like you can watch reruns of a TV series called ‘The Wire’.
When I was in high school my best friend who is caucasian, lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Fairfax County VA was constantly being rousted by the police, while the same cops would totally ignore me. As a matter of fact I got a misdemeanor conviction for assuming a name other than my own when we were at the mall and the cops zeroed in on him. I knew he was going to be arrested if they searched him so I got in the cops face in order to distract him from my friend. The assumed name I used? Mickey Mouse. My friend was able to slip away unnoticed thanks to my distraction.
I have no clue what any of this means. But I guess I’m inclined to believe that certain people are profiled and not necessarily based on skin color or ethnicity. When I was in my teens and 20s I presented as the quintessential hippie, hair down to my ass, unkempt facial hair, cannabis slogan t-shirts and still never got rousted. It really was just happenstance that my friend had the reefer when he got rousted, not evidence that he should have been profiled. As a matter of fact we decided that subsequently I’d hold the reefer because his getting rousted was anything but unusual.
Duncan, your experience is indeed out of the ordinary. While African american men make up less than 18% of the total population, they make up about 36% of the prison population. That fact alone should be sufficient to tell the tale. While anecdotes are sometimes useful in communicating a proplem, we must guard against generalizing any individual’s personal experience. I merely had this anecdote to share. If everybody shared this experience, what would be the purpose of putting it forward here? The statistics also speak for themselves. The piece linked in the posting made it clear, the subjects in these “stop and frisk” encounters are 88% black or latino. I was using a personal experience to convey the frustrating experience of being targeted because you fit somebody’s profile. Not suggesting in any way that this was universal.
Actually the only thing the prison statistics tell me is that black people are more likely to fit the ‘profile’. I did notice that my fellow inmates at the Fairfax County jail were about 60% black while the population of that county is about 12% minority. I even recall a fellow inmate who was black and had no previous incarcerations who was significantly impressed that there were so many white people in jail. He wondered if it meant that the system wasn’t stacked against people of color until I mentioned the racial make up of the population of the county.
I’ve also got to think that personal wealth has some contributory effect. It really doesn’t seem controversial to me to conclude that the poor are more likely to commit criminal acts than the wealthy (More likely does not mean exclusively). I’ve had no money or resources in my younger days and I can tell you that from my point of view it was true. I’m totally clueless why I’d take a 5 finger discount at the grocery store as the potential for being arrested is simply not worth it to me. I confess that the thought of the 5 finger discount was definitely considered back when I had squat. I’ve even waxed philosophical that it’s a lot easier to be ethical and honest when you have the resources to provide for your needs than when you don’t. Yes, there are rich people that commit crimes but that’s exclusive to people who are under the influence of greed. There are poor people who suffer from greed as well, but there are people that suffer from need who aren’t greedy that commit crimes which they wouldn’t if they had more money. It’s also easier to get lighter sentences if you have the resources to hire the right legal team (see State of CA vs Simpson). I don’t think that anyone could argue that there aren’t a lot moor poor minority folks than whites. I don’t find it to be racist to say that poor people are more likely to commit crimes than those with the resources to meet their needs. But it does follow that blacks do commit more crimes because they have more poverty.
Lots of people of color in jail for drug dealing. But is it because they’re black or because they think they can open up a cocaine and heroin distribution business and operate it while standing on the corner of a public street. Should I conclude that people of color are idiots since I’ve never once encountered a white drug dealer doing business in an open air drug market? That’s with 33 years experience so it’s not a particularly small sample. But I conclude that the white folks have the resources to keep their business indoors and out of sight as a major cause of this phenomenon. In plain words I’m sayiung that the important color is green, not black, brown, white, red or yellow.
Here’s a clip of Larry Wilmore, Senior Black Correspondent of the Daily Show commenting on how lame today’s racism is versus days past. He has a clip of Strom Thurmond’s speech from 1948 when he was running for POTUS on the Dixiecrat ticket which really does point out how racism has been significantly tempered.
http://tinyurl.com/yehpf7v
Then there is the fact that a significant number of the arresting officers that send so many blacks to prison are themselves black.
I’ve been told I’m racist because I don’t find dark skinned women physically attractive. But Strom Thurmond definitely had a taste for black girls in private so I really don’t see how it follows, and I sure can’t see anyone claiming that Mr. Thurmond wasn’t a racist. To me racist would be that I find black women attractive but wouldn’t consider dating them because of their race, or even more so were I to say that others shouldn’t be allowed to engage in miscegenation. If someone in my family ends up in an interracial marriage I’ll definitely throw rice at their wedding. Oh wait, you’re not supposed to throw rice anymore because it kills birds. There honestly isn’t a racist bone in my body, and the fact that I’ve been told I’m racist because of my taste in women tells me that people see racism where it doesn’t exist.
Many think that all whites are racist and use the example of slavery, but the fact of the matter is that slavery in the US ended because some white people told other white people that they couldn’t do that anymore. My family didn’t get to the US until the 1880’s, and there was no slavery in Ireland or Scotland, so I totally disclaim any personal responsibility for slavery.
Another interesting thing to me is how the definition of racism has morphed to include an assumption of hatred. All it ever required was to believe that your race was superior. I think that dogs are inferior to humans but I don’t hate dogs. Read some of Abraham Lincoln’s writing on the subject. The man was a total unashamed racist because he believed blacks inferior to whites. He certainly didn’t launch the emancipation of the slaves because he believed they were equals, and he certainly had no hatred for people of color.
But does the etiology really matter at all? Whether a significant cohort of people suffer excessive police interaction because of their relative wealth or the color of their skin seems to me to be a distinction without difference.
Lets check the statistics of poor people of all colors that are profiled, hassled,etc that might be intersting.
The war on drugs was an extension of the war on poverty.
And it takes no statistics to prove that people with the money for lawyers,private investigators and professional witnesses plus the appeals involved seldom go to prison.
Regardless of color.
Clay Gooding,
The term “War on Poverty ” was Lyndon B. Johnson’s program to alleviate poverty, not make war on The Poor.
(I am no defender of LBJ.)
I’d also like to point out that rich people and people with means do committ crimes. Fudging on your taxes. Mail fraud. White collar crimes of all descriptions. Why? I’d like to ask are such a preponderance of our police resources directed at the inner city and rural poor? Well, violence is one possible answer, but since white people of wealth often beat their spouses or children, I don’t think that’s the whole story.
The answer is, on a basic police level, that’s where the low hanging fruit is. It’s alot easier and quicker (not to mention better for your department’s budget) to nab a corner dealer, or shake someone down for weapons than to nab a crooked broker or a tax fraud.
It’s also a devastatingly effective weapon of social control. Nixon’s drug war was undertaken, despite the recommendations of the Schaeffer commission, in part to make it easier to target people participating in Viet Nam war protests. Now, one look at the unemployment statistics for young black men will tell you exactly why they are currently being warehoused here in this country. You are on the right track when you start with the operative color is green. But the results are devastating for you if you have the misfortune of being poor, black, male and urban. And the reasons are contrived, just like the war on some drugs. It is hard to believe that it’s just a confluence of circumstances when there is overwhelming evidence that this situation was deliberatly set up with social control at it’s heart. It’s the domination of the poor by the rich.
Just look at the difference in the situation if you are a poor urban young adult busted with pot vs a rich guy’s kid. The young man with the rich family is getting off with treatment and drug court. The public defender isn’t even going to point this option out to the poor kid….no money, no treatment, jail time and a permanant record result along with the diminshed chances to compete with that rich kid in the job market. Job done, a permanant underclass is established.
Prisons call themselves “corrections” institutions, but precious little correcting goes on. No one speaks of ‘rehabilitation’ anymore. Instead, the survival of the fittest reigns on the inside, and our prisons become training acadamies for career criminals. Teaching that violence and dominance are the final arbiters of right and wrong. Just like the society that uses military tactics to execute misdemeanor searches and arrests intended. You’re right it’s the poor folk who suck it up, but to suggest that being poor would somehowe make you more likely to be a criminal is missing the point. It’s just the poor who have to go to prison for their crimes.
Oh , and just look at the disparity in sentancing between white defendants and black defendants for the same crime in this country. Especially in Texas. That’s all I have to say about THAT.
If stop-and-frisks were recorded using GPS location data, it would be possible to cross reference actual robberies in the Brooklyn area with each stop-and-frisk to determine if the frisks are really what they’re claimed to be. Presumably, no stop-and-frisk data exists.
How convenient.
Without the data, the Brooklyn cops are free to engage in flanking maneuvers intended to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens. Which is exactly what this situation appears to be.
I think it’s time the city force the Brooklyn police to get wired.
Really what is the point of stopping the same kid 20 times? Did the kids in the rich neighborhood get stopped that much. What was up with the guy doing 13days on Rykers Island for what resisting arrest lucky for him he wasn’t shot and killed. A mere mundane must never question the authority of the judge’s step-n-fetchit boys known as the police. I thought we lived in a classless, free and equal jesus loving golden utopia and I love the tooth fairy and the easter bunny too.
It’s more about the haves vs. the have nots than whites vs. people of color.
“If stop-and-frisks were recorded using GPS location data, it would be possible to cross reference actual robberies in the Brooklyn area with each stop-and-frisk to determine if the frisks are really what they’re claimed to be.”
It would be even more awesome to have ‘badge-cam’ footage of the stop and frisk with the GPS data. Jack and Jill boots should wear cameras which are not turned off until they take off thier uniforms or badges at the end of thier shifts.
I just ran across this post at Slashdot:
Narco Blogger Beats Mexico Drug War News Blackout
claygooding, that rebuttal video has been deemed “inappropriate” by youtube – they now censor the truth.
You can see the video @
Link
post #14
I wonder if enough people wrote youtube and showed them all the lies in stopprop19’s video if they would say the same for it?
“Drug czar says society is threatened by illegal trade”
Link
comments allowed.
Shap
August 14, 2010 at 1:06 pm
It’s more about the haves vs. the have nots than whites vs. people of color.
I have to concur.
Try walking around with a suit on, then try it with a biker or rapper look see what happens. Its a case of judging the book by the cover.Been there.