Man in neighborhood did not want to racially profile Farook

[cigsandcoffee]

Last edited Thu Dec 3, 2015, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Tough call. I can imagine how the neighbor must have felt. Bet he wishes he'd called now, though. Hindsight is 20/20.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/12/02/authorities-search-redlands-home-tied-to-suspect-syed-farook/

(Excerpt)


Neighbors in Redlands were shocked that the suspects had ties to their area.

“I was in awe that it was happening four houses down from my property,” one neighbor said.

A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.

“We sat around lunch thinking, ‘What were they doing around the neighborhood?'” he said. “We’d see them leave where they’re raiding the apartment.”

[benld74]

1. Twas NOT the neighbor, but a man working in the area,,,,,

A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.

[cigsandcoffee]

2. Good catch. Doesn't really change anything, though.

I wonder if I'd have reported anything. Frankly, I doubt it.

I might now, though. I'd hate to go through life thinking 14 people might be alive if I made a call.

[uppityperson]

5. What would you report? I am honestly curious.

[cigsandcoffee]

18. Don't know, really. I suppose that I'd report feeling suspicious, the way this guy apparently did.

I'd say there seemed to be a lot of different Middle Eastern men coming and going from this particular house, and lots of packages being delivered. I'd also say that I was sure it was harmless and would turn out to be nothing, and that I felt bad for thinking this way, but that one can't be too careful in this day and age.

[GusBob]

39. Lots of packages? Where did you get that?

There is nothing in the news story about packages or suspicious neighbors

Why are you making shit up?

[uppityperson]

58. My friend is off Scotch-Danish ancestry 5 generations back but has tanned skin, dark hair, bushy

eyebrows and gets extra screening when he flies because of that. He's 5th gen American, no MEancestry he can find. He is getting lots of packages because it's Dec and he's preparing for Xmas gifts. Sometimes he walks inside quickly with a friend as his child is having problems.

Would you report him?

Hindsight is 20-20. Yes, you can be "too careful".

[Nay]

40. Well, exactly. What DO you report? And let's say the cops actually rolled up

on that call and got their IDs -- so what? The shooters were not known to the police; they were legally able to buy guns, ammo and camo; their relatives were all upstanding citizens, as were they until the day they shot everybody; probably nothing to even make a report about, except the complaint.

[greyl]

10. Why don't you change your OP headline to be less false? nt

[cigsandcoffee]

19. OK, done. Don't really see how it makes much of a difference. n/t

[GusBob]

3. Clarify: not a neighbor

"a man that was working in the area"

Sounds like the neighbor had no idea

[uppityperson]

4. He did racially profile them, just didn't report that there were middle eastern men staying in

the neighborhood. Unless they DID anything then behind just BE there.

[blogslut]

6. How did the person know they were Middle Eastern men?

[cigsandcoffee]

20. I'm guessing because they looked Middle Eastern. n/t

[blogslut]

34. What does Middle Eastern look like?

[cigsandcoffee]

44. Google can help you with this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=middle+eastern+man&rlz=1C1ASUC_enUS630US630&espv=2&biw=1525&bih=912&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU6Ny_w8DJAhVEND4KHZXXAgYQ_AUIBigB

[blogslut]

45. Haha

Nice dodge.

[theboss]

50. Like....I dunno...A Middle Eastern dude

I imagine you looking at Wesley Snipes and wondering if he is Australian.

[blogslut]

52. So...

All Austrians look alike? Is that what you're saying?

[theboss]

55. I didn't mention Austrians. I assume all Austrians look like the Von Trapp family.

All Australians do look alike. I've never met an Australian who was not a 6'2 tri-athlete.

I do not like Australians and their obvious genetic perfection.

Seriously, where are you going with this?

[uppityperson]

59. There are no black people in Australia? Seriously?

There are indigenous/aboriginal and african- australians.

That statement is incredible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Australian

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians

[theboss]

60. All Australians look like Greg Norman and Olivia Newton John

That's just good science.

[uppityperson]

62. Ah, you fall back on the "I didn't mean it, was only joking" to excuse bigotry? Huh. Nt

[theboss]

65. No, I mean it.

Nicole Kidman is the ugliest person to ever come from Australia.

I think they kicked her out to improve things.

(But are we really not allowed to look at someone and say, "That dude's from Nigeria?" Because that seems like a weird way to go through life).

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. "911, what's your emergency?"

"I see Middle Eastern men in my area."
"OK, sir. What are they doing?"
"Coming and going."
"Are they committing a crime, sir?"
"They're milling about. There must be six or seven of them."
"Could you describe their behavior?"
"They arrive, go inside this house. Then they leave the house, get in their car, and drive away. Must have happened two or three times this month."
"We'll send a car right out."

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!!!

[bklyncowgirl]

9. Things like this could pretty much paralyze law enforcement.

In some areas of my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn this would be an every day occurrence.

[Iggo]

35. Exactly.

[philosslayer]

8. This is a slippery slope

If we start calling the police every time we see a group of people who fit someone's perception of a profile.

[Cal Carpenter]

16. Naw, it's a fucking cliff

Horrifying that people are sympathizing with profiling based on a meaningless quote of the bigoted, opportunistic not-neighbor.

It's not 'profiling', it is flat out bigotry. If the only thing the people he refers to were doing was going in and out of an apartment, what would calling the cops accomplish anyway?

Some bullshit quote from some anonymous dude apparently gives people license to defend total bigotry. What if he could have stopped this from happening? Obviously they were up to no good. They looked middle eastern!1!! GMAFB.

This shit's sending *me* over the cliff. I need to start hiding threads.

[cigsandcoffee]

21. As it turns out, though, they were up to no good. His suspicions were sound. n/t

[VMA131Marine]

32. How do we know that?

This house is apparently owned by one of Farook's family members. The visitors could have been friends or family with no connection to what happened. Without evidence all you have here is a coincidence.

[0rganism]

43. you know this how, exactly?

these "Middle Eastern Men" could have been family visiting a 6-month old baby, old friends stopping by to say hi, anything really.

for all i know, they might not have been "Middle Eastern Men" at all. how do you know so much more about their particulars? are you FBI?

[ScreamingMeemie]

11. I live across the street from a Muslim family and there are many in my neighborhood.

That is profiling, and I think nothing of groups visiting... Muslims celebrate holidays too. That would be like me calling the cops because a bunch of beer-bellied "Christian" white men got together the week of Christmas.

The only violence in my neighborhood? The Stay family (white, domestic incident), Stephen McDougall (White man shot and killed his pregnant wife in their driveway) and a drug deal that went bad a few streets over (both the shooter and the dead man were black, but he had the wrong house).

[Bucky]

12. It's sickening to think, but this shooting will actually help Trump's call to "register all Muslims"

[Cal Carpenter]

13. Really? You can imagine how the 'neighbor' felt?

The neighbor who wasn't even a neighbor?

Who felt suspicious for no apparent reason other than some men appearing to maybe be middle eastern, who were doing nothing other than coming to and/or leaving a house?

Fuck, glad I'm not a brown skinned person with an accent in your area. I'd hate for you to have to 'feel' scared and suspicious.

This not-neighbor sounds more to me like an asshole opportunist who wants to be quoted in the paper. They weren't wearing masks or carrying guns when he saw them. From the limited info in the quote they weren't doing anything.

There are hundreds of thousands of people of middle eastern origin in this country. If more than 2 or 3 of them are together, if they are visiting each others' homes, does that seem suspicious to you?

A tough call, eh?

smdh.... I am sure I sound super snarky but my mind boggles. I spend most of my time in a very diverse neighborhood filled with people of middle eastern origin. Some of them are my friends. The kind of attitude you are expressing is awful, reactionary bigotry, whether you realize it or not.

[cigsandcoffee]

22. You do understand these people did actually kill 14 people, right?

Seems to me like the guy was right to be suspicious, or am I missing something?

[Cal Carpenter]

24. Okay, I'll play

"...he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks..." “We sat around lunch thinking, ‘What were they doing around the neighborhood?'” he said.

Based on what that man says he noticed, what makes him right to be suspicious?

[flamingdem]

27. Something unusual in the neighborhood's history nt

[Cal Carpenter]

28. The guy quoted doesn't live in the neighborhood. How would he know?

What is unusual anyway? People who look middle eastern, at least one of whom lives there?

How is that unusual?

What would make it unusual enough to warrant calling the cops?

What would the cops be willing/able to do about it? What do you think would appropriate for the cops to do about it?

Please note, these aren't abstract questions. This is not just a thought exercise. What you are getting at, and especially what the OP is getting at, can have real life impacts on many innocent people. After 9/11, this type of thinking let to families being ripped apart, innocent people getting locked up with no contact and deported to places that are not their homes.

[cigsandcoffee]

41. Here's the thing, though.

Something set off this guy's suspicion alarm, that may or may not be more than what is mentioned in this story. Later, people who lived at that house killed 14 people in what is quickly appearing to be a terrorist attack. At face value, that would seem to vindicate his suspicions.

A cop knocking at the door may have gotten a sense that things weren't quite right. Further investigation may have indicated the legal purchase of weapons at that house, and also items related to bomb making (it seems they found quite a few items related to explosives). Hell, just a cop knocking at the door might have been enough to scare the eventual perpetrators in to canceling their plans.

We don't know that this man was suspicious simply because the people were Middle Eastern. We do know that he didn't report anything to authorities because he was sensitive to the idea of racial profiling. He doesn't really sound like a racist to me.

[Cal Carpenter]

48. Here's the other thing, though

You didn't specifically answer my questions. You seem unwilling to actually take your thought process to the next level. I saw families torn apart after 9/11 based on bullshit 'suspicions'. I saw innocent people put in prison in secret locations with no access to their families or lawyers. I saw people get deported to places that they have never thought of as home. Innocent people.

You are really good at extrapolating thought crimes from a few words from an anonymously quoted dude who saw some people who may or may not be the ones involved in this hellacious attack, but you aren't so good at intellectual honesty. We don't know who he saw and if they had anything to do with this attack personally. Your assumptions are false so everything that follows is flawed. 'Seem to' and 'may have' are not good enough.

Conversation's going nowhere. Done playing.

[melman]

49. Of course. Any sane person can see that

But not here at DU. They won't even consider the possibility that these two terrorists that killed 14 people and had a fucking bomb factory in their garage might have looked like they were up to something.

[LiberalArkie]

29. Is being Pakistani middle east or Indian? I always thought Indian.

[Cal Carpenter]

31. South Asian

India is a separate country from Pakistan. India and Pakistan are both considered south Asian countries.

[LiberalArkie]

36. Ok. I said Indian as they were formed from a part of India, but South Asian makes more sense I guess

[Cal Carpenter]

42. I think here in the US we use middle eastern to describe a larger area than the people

from that area do. Given the history, I would guess Pakistanis wouldn't like being referred to as Indian, despite being part of the Indian subcontinent.

I hear folks refer to themselves as South Asian - from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc.

[LiberalArkie]

47. You are more than correct. I can not imagine a Pakistani would tolerate being called Indian at all.

Probably fighting words.

[SolutionisSolidarity]

38. I was told Pakistan is derived from Persian, Arab, Kurdish, and Indian.

It looks like this may not be true, but it is a racially mixed country nonetheless.

[elleng]

51. The country of Pakistan developed from India.

'Prior to independence in 1947, the territory of modern Pakistan was a part of the British Indian Empire. Prior to that it was ruled in different periods by local kings and numerous imperial powers. The ancient history of the region comprising present-day Pakistan also includes some of the oldest of the names of empires of South Asia[1] and some of its major civilizations.[2][3][4][5] By the 18th century the land was incorporated into British India. Pakistan's political history began with the birth of the All India Muslim League in 1906 to protect "Muslim interests, amid neglect and under-representation" and to oppose Congress and growing Hindu nationalism in return the British Raj would decide to grant local self-rule. On 29 December 1930, philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal called for an autonomous new state in "northwestern India for Indian Muslims".[6] The League rose to popularity in the late 1930s. Muhammad Ali Jinnah espoused the Two Nation Theory and led the League to adopt the Lahore Resolution[7] of 1940, demanding the formation of independent states in the East and the West of British India. Eventually, a successful movement led by Jinnah resulted in the partition of India and independence from Britain, on 14 August 1947.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pakistan

[redstateblues]

53. Sorry, these folks that go to the middle east and come back

radicalized need to be watched. It's not cool here to acknowledge that these people are not mentally ill people with guns-these people are on a mission to kill as many of us as they can. Things are different today. Sucks.

[Sissyk]

14. A man that was working in the area.

NOT a neighbor. Please correct your title.

[cigsandcoffee]

23. OK, I did. What difference does it make? n/t

[Sissyk]

25. Well, now it looks like you may have read the article before posting. n/t

[Cal Carpenter]

33. LOL

[cigsandcoffee]

46. Fair enough. n/t

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. Did this suspicious neighbor actually witness anything, you know, suspcious?

Such as coordinated target shooting, assembling of explosives, etc.?

Because last I know, merely seeing someone who looks Middle Eastern is not witnessing "suspicious activity".

[Matariki]

37. Seriously.

Horrible article.

[Starry Messenger]

17. I'm a renter surrounded by wealthy people.

Always tempted to call the cops on those shifty fellows, but I don't want to class-profile. Maybe I should start? They keep coming and going, driving expensive cars, too.

[flamingdem]

26. Suspects left three explosive devices rigged to a remote-controlled toy car inside at the Inland Reg

That from the Daily Mail. Charming folks.

[Glassunion]

30. Since most suspects in mass shootings are young white men, maybe that's where we should profile.

[jeff47]

54. So...Middle-Eastern-looking people aren't allowed to have visitors?

Wait...my neighbor has visitors...OH MY GOD! THEY'RE ISIS!! Sure, they're Sikh, but they're Middle Eastern looking! And people come and go from their house!!!

And the guy across the street is Black...and he has visitors too!! He must be a gang member!! Sure he's in his 50s and spends his days puttering in his yard, but people come and go from their house!

OMG...The Chinese family on the other side must be spies! Because they don't have visitors! They're deliberately keeping a low profile!

[Trajan]

56. What nonsense ...

"Yes officer, I want to report the presence of middle eastern men ... I think you should go check them out, because they might have a shitload of weapons of mass destruction, or maybe some assault rifles and body armor, because, you know, they are middle eastern looking ..."

Sheesh ... What balderdash .... People are falling over themselves to bring the most authoritarian measures into our communities ...

I will point out, approx one billion Muslims did NOT kill anyone today ... Let's go get'm!

[philosslayer]

61. Sounds like a racist creep who wants his 15 minutes to me

I doubt he saw anything at all.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

63. Racial profiling fear stopped neighbor reporting suspects

Two different news stories, two different people involved.

Video at link...

Aaron Elswick, whose friend lives on the street, told KTLA that she regretted at not reporting Farook and Malik (Two suspects in San Bernardino shooting) . She had seen them receiving multiple packages but did not.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1234163/Racial-profiling-fear-stopped-neighbor-reporting-suspects.html

Probably doesn't change the narrative much, if it was "a man who has been working in the area", or it was a "neighbor" that
witnessed the goings on. I doubt the police would have investigated in either circumstance.

[Cal Carpenter]

68. Thanks for elaborating on the info in the OP

"I doubt the police would have investigated in either circumstance."

Afaic, that is the bottom line. Unless the neighbor or worker saw something that isn't being mentioned, like tactical vests in the driveway or piles of ammo on the porch, there is no reason for the cops to investigate. 'Reporting' these allegedly suspicious people would have been seen as a nuisance call.

It seems there are people here who are using this example as a reason to expect cops to knock on doors of brown-skinned people who look 'middle eastern' and...well, I'm not sure what. Search their homes? Take their computers for examination?

I understand people react emotionally and it is sort of natural to think 'what if...' but I think it would behoove people to take a step back and listen to themselves and what they are actually arguing for because as I said way upthread, it isn't just a slippery slope we are talking about, it is a cliff. A cliff we went over after 9/11 with the result of destroying the lives and families of innocent Americans because their religion, skin color and nationality made them 'suspicious' to someone.

[LittleBlue]

64. 14 dead and for what? Racial guilt?

If you see something suspicious, call the goddamn police. Don't worry about what skin color the people happen to be.

Political correctness is not worth anyone's life.

[jeff47]

66. And report what, exactly? A middle eastern couple has visitors who are middle eastern?

I'm about to have a bunch of white visitors. So clearly my neighbors need to report me. After all, terrorist attacks by whites are far more common in the US.

[karynnj]

67. It does not sound like they saw anything really suspicious

Just middle eastern looking men visiting a middle eastern couple who lived there. Even if the couple had never had visitors and then had a dozen for a week or so --- aren't there easy normal reasons that could occur? Including family visiting, friends visiting.