Police stop more than 1 million people on street for no reason

[Divine Discontent]

NEW YORK – A teenager trying to get into his apartment after school is confronted by police. A man leaving his workplace chooses a different route back home to avoid officers who roam a particular street.

These and hundreds of thousands of other Americans in big cities have been stopped on the street by police using a law-enforcement practice called stop-and-frisk that alarms civil libertarians but is credited by authorities with helping reduce crime.

Police in major U.S. cities stop and question more than a million people each year — a sharply higher number than just a few years ago. Most are black and Hispanic men. Many are frisked, and nearly all are innocent of any crime, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

And the numbers are rising at the same time crime rates are dropping.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_us/us_stop_and_frisk
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Crime rates dropping are being used as the reason it is a good thing, being treated like a criminal when you aren't one, be damned! (I am white, I have been stopped once, many years ago, for merely walking on a side street near a strip club I was passing while heading to the grocery store. I was asked for ID, and then I told the cop since he stopped me, I'd like him to take me the rest of the way to the gas station which he did after staring at me for a few seconds.... damn straight, you're gonna!)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Some popo drive at highly unreasonable speeds just because they

can. I imagine this results in a ridiculous amount of fuel being wasted cuz somebody wants to get home a little earlier or to the donut shop... or to the casino, whatever.

[Raineyb]

18. Interesting. In these parts they drive 20 miles below the speed limit as if they were

trolling for hookers then get pissy at you for passing them.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. Why don't they frisk people on Wall Street?

Oh, wait...

[L0oniX]

8. +1

[KansDem]

3. Yeah, but what "crime" is reduced?

...credited by authorities with helping reduce crime.

Any Wall Street CEOs? Any banking CEOs? Anyone from these two groups getting stopped and frisked?

I thought not...

[billh58]

4. But I

thought that crime rates are dropping because more people are exercising their right to carry guns. Now you're asking me to believe that crime rates are dropping because more people's rights are being violated?

I'm soooooo confused...

[KamaAina]

5. Oh please. It's not "for no reason".

It's because they're black or brown. That's the reason. :eyes:

[Caliman73]

6. I would also throw in poor whites who associate with the brownies

I know when I was young, my buddies and I got stopped a few times. 2 Mexican guys, an 1/2 Irish 1/2 Mexican (but very White looking)guy, and a Black guy in a beater car was just too tempting to pass up I guess. They always wanted to know "where are you from?" and would get pissed when we told them what city we lived in rather than what gang they thought we might be from. Ah police, they have a tough job, but some of them really get addicted to that power don't they?

[FatDave]

24. I used to be hassled constantly for being poor.

Sometimes I think economic discrimination gets confused for racial discrimination. Not saying that racial discrimination isn't real, but that cops harass poor white people too.

[Caliman73]

25. Poor people definitely get the short end of the stick.

In no way do I dispute what you are saying. I was however, and I suppose still am middle class. My friends and I went to a private Catholic high school and were honor students. There wasn't much to distinguish us as "bangers" other than we were of mixed heritage and in a car. What I call a beater was probably more like a earlier model car (an 82 Mazda in 1990). I agree that economic discrimination can be confused for racial, but it is a bit more difficult to tell a poor Mexican from a middle class or above Mexican, than it is to tell us from White people. The cops would often ask my friend what he was doing in the car with us.

[safeinOhio]

7. When stopped and questioned for no reason

be polite, helpful and nice. Then go directly to a phone and call the department and ask to talk to the chief or his second in command and report what happened, the time and a describe the officer. They want to know if they have cops that'll cause them problems.

[ThomCat]

9. Are you kidding?

Here in NYC you aren't going to be allowed to talk to anyone, and they aren't going to care. I'm sure it's like that in every other big city too.

The cops are doing this because it is policy, so the chief isn't going to be concerned. According to the higher ups, the cops aren't doing anything wrong by violating people's civil rights.

[safeinOhio]

11. The one thing that can shorting their career

is a bunch of law suits that the city must pay out for rights violations. That is why I said go to the top. They are the only ones that have to worry about law suits and explaining them to elected officials. If a bunch of calls come in about a certain cop, his career is going no where and the first thing that they can get him on, he, or she, is fired.

[Raineyb]

20. You obviously have never dealt with the NYPD

They can kill someone with an illegal choke hold and STILL keep their job. Where have you been?

[Luminous Animal]

12. Actually, if they haven't a reason to stop you, they've no right to engage you.

You can be polite and say that you are busy and go on your way.

[ThomCat]

21. Unfortunately, I believe the courts have rules that refusing a "random search"

is suspicious, and therefore probable cause for them to arrest you and search you anyway. (if I am remembering my ACLU and NYCLU newsletters correctly) Isn't that wonderful? Refusing to give up your rights gives them permission to take away your rights, so in what way can we be said to actually have them at all?

[Raineyb]

19. Are you for real?

The cops are NOT interested in hearing your tales of harassment at the hands of their underlings. That'll only make it worse for you the next time these asshats decide to harass you.

Why don't you just have them file a complaint with the CCRB... Oh wait. Never mind!

[ThomCat]

22. Oh yeah, the Citizens Review Boards, the paper tiger

with something like a 2% success rate at getting cops punished by having some of their vacation time taken away from them.

Occasionally they even manage to put a note put in someone's permanent file, though those notes don't seem to prevent anyone from getting promoted so I don't know what kind of punishment that is supposed to represent.

And on top of that, their judgments are non-binding. The chief of police and his administration can choose to ignore CCRB rulings and come to conclusions of their own after performing their own "internal investigations." It should come as no surprise that those internal investigations are almost universally white-washes, finding that any use of force was somehow appropriate.

If would be really nice if we had some kind of mechanism that worked for policing the police.

[Raineyb]

26. Exactly! The CCRB is a bloody joke.

There is ostensibly nobody keeping watch over the NYPD while they do whatever the hell they want. What's the worse that will happen to them? A few days off with pay? Yeah that's showing them.

It never ceases to amaze me when people insist on sticking up for the police no matter what they do.

[Kievan Rus]

10. Rest assured, they'll never do it somebody driving a BMW

After that asshat Reagan trashed America, the police became little more than the wealthy's private security force.

[DCKit]

13. A (Black) co-worker of mine was stopped in his brand-new BMW in Arlington, VA...

on the excuse that his car had been reported stolen. The fascists then proceeded to go through his food with their bare hands.

And don't get me started on Chief Cathy (Kathy?) Lanier of the DCMPD. They continued to pull people with out-of-state tags (regardless of color) over in front of my building for months after the freakin' USSC told them such stops were unconstitutional and needed to be halted immediately.

No state or locality has the sole franchise on fascist cops.

There are about two dozen law and cop shows on television these days, all trying to convince us that 1) good cops, judges and prosecutors are the majority and 2) when cops, judges and prosecutors make a mistake or unfairly target the wrong person, they admit it and go to the ends of the earth to rectify that mistake. Too many of us have had the opposite experience.

I had the misfortune of watching "Judge Judy" today and was horrified at her attitude (prejudice doesn't begin to describe it) and the things she said (and about) a white, teen, female driver. To the grandmother "How do you know a teenager is lying...."

[Selatius]

16. The cynical joke is your friend was guilty of DWB, "Driving While Black."

The fact that your friend was driving a high-priced vehicle just made your friend stick out worse to the police because they're liable to think she either stole the car or bought it with money derived from the drug trade. Of course, they are assuming these things off of a negative stereotype of Black people.

[Selatius]

14. I'd love to see the shitstorm occur if these police tried it in a rich neighborhood.

They would be sued into bankruptcy.

[Liberal_in_LA]

15. KICK

Important topic

[TexasObserver]

17. Recommend

[MadHound]

23. This is nothing new,

I lived in Springfield Mo twenty five years ago. Had really long hair. In the span of four years I was pulled over eight times for the standard hassle. I would ask the cops why they were stopping me and get answers like "you're new in this neighborhood."

One of the many things that convinced me that Springfield was the armpit, better yet asshole of the country.