Smoke and Fire and Realities
New York "adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data.The New York Police Department violates the constitutional rights of minorities, according to Judge Shira Scheindler. She ruled that police officers have been systematically stopping innocent people. Racial profiling, that ugly, ugly and police-work-useful methodology of swiftly concluding that if they're young, male and black there may be more than immediately meets the eye.
"I also conclude that the city's highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner.
Judge Scheindlin was "not ordering an end to the practise of stop-and-frisk. The purpose of the remedies addressed in this opinion is to ensure that the practice is carried out in a manner that protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much needed police protection.
"No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life. Blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites."
Justice Shira Scheindlin, New York
Young black males and Hispanics, minority men are stopped and searched for weapons, contraband. Judge Scheindlin's 195-page decision spoke of stop-and-frisk events rising precipitously in numbers over the past ten years even as crime continued to decline. They violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. While it is possible that the diminishment of crime could be directly attributed to the increased vigilance against young men of colour, it represents a social anomaly.
The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, stressed Judge Scheindlin's ruling. The Supreme Court had long since ruled the constitutionality of stop-and-frisks under certain conditions, so while they are not illegal, their focus on young men of colour takes a "human toll of unconstitutional stops". Some of those who have been the victims of such events are left feeling that they had undergone "a demeaning and humiliating experience."
Such profiling takes place for a well-enough understood reason. Black-on-black crime is endemic. Crime among young men of colour is a reliable index that all is not well within American society. Black, biracial men and women described for her their experiences of being stopped and searched based on their appearance. 88% of the stops, noted the judge, result in the individual being dismissed with no charges.
The President of the United States writes and speaks movingly of his experience as a black man. Of his experiences as a young boy and as a man with the realization that he was viewed as being different, inferior, the target of discrimination, the object of social abuse. He can identify with the bulk of young black men who undergo these experiences. Experiences that lead them to think they are not valued as the human beings they are.
On the other hand, the incidence of crime and violence and social-disengagement of one kind or another among blacks and Hispanics is much higher than among the white population. Where the focus of crimes abound there will be suspicion. As a man of substance, a man who worked as a community organizer in his younger years in Chicago, Barack Obama knew enough to avoid confrontations with belligerent young black males.
"We'd almost reached Johnnie's car when we heard a small pop, compact and brief, like a balloon bursting. We looked in the direction of the sound, and watched a young man appear from around the corner diagonal to us. I don't clearly recall his features or what he wore, although he couldn't have been older than fifteen. I just remember that he ran at a desperate pace, his sneakered feet silent against the sidewalk, his lanky limbs pumping wildly, his chest jutting out as if straining for an imaginary tape.New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to appeal the ruling.
"Johnnie dropped flat onto a small plot of grass in front of one of the apartments, and I quickly followed suit. A few seconds later, two more boys came around the same corner, also running at full speed. One of them, short, fattish, with pants that bunched around his ankles, was waving a small pistol. Without stopping to aim, he let out three quick shots in the direction of the first boy. Then, realizing that his target was out of range, he slowed to a walk, stuffing the weapon under his shirt. His companion, skinny and big-eared, came alongside.
"Stupid motherfucker", the skinny boy said. He spat with satisfaction, and the two of them laughed to each other before continuing down the street, children again, their figures casting squat shadows on the asphalt."
Barack Obama -- Dreams from My Father -- a Story of Race and Inheritance
Labels: Controversy, Crime, Human Relations, Justice, Social-Cultural Deviations, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 14, 2013
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