Americanpolitics

Twenty-five (25) year old Omar J. Edwards, a black New York City cop dies as the result of being shot in the back by another officer while chasing someone he had caught breaking into his parked car.

True, Omar was in pursuit of the alleged criminal, true also Omar had his gun out. My question is, was this a situation of racial profiling, which immediately had the white cop jumping to the conclusion that the “black man” was the criminal.

Did the white cop identify himself before he started firing? Did he just assume that the black man with the gun was the one in the wrong and decided, without warning to “eliminate” the problem? Was Omar in street clothes or his uniform since he was just getting off work when this incident happened? There are so many unanswered questions.

While it seems the only race that is immune to the ill effects of racial profiling, in America, are white people, Blacks, Latinos, South Asians, Muslims, Arabs and Native Americans all fall prey to the discrimination that racial profiling perpetuates on one level or another.

This racial profiling has crossed lines into dress lately with a growing concern for those young Americans who dress in baggy clothes or “gang colors”; all are caught up in the racial profiling assault.

According to Wikipedia on-line, racial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a “predictable” manner.

In this broad definition, the potential, probable and apparent abuse by law enforcement has come to light. More productive means of profiling alternatives, such as passport profiling, behavior profiling, driving errors, even criminal history would be better suited and less all inclusive of any particular race or ethnic background

There are 24 listed cues that an officer watches for in determining “probable cause” to stop and detain you for DUI and they are as follows:

Problems Maintaining Proper Lane Position, such as weaving, drifting, swerving, turning with a wide radius; speed and breaking problems such as stopping beyond a limit line, alternating between speeding and slowing down, drive ten miles under the speed limit; vigilance problems, in terms of, signaling inconsistent with driving action, driving into opposing or crossing traffic and judgment problems such as turning illegally, driving on other than the designated roadway or you can simply look impaired.

To be stopped based on racial profiling is not listed in this list however, driving while black or brown has been an issue for quite sometime now especially in certain neighborhoods. Be it under the guise of DUI or any other traffic violation, the availability of the right of an officer to stop and search with “probable cause”, based solely on racial profiling, is an injustice and has been abused to the point of recognition because a “probable cause” stop can be easily manufactured in the minds of the officer who simply wants to stop on the basis of racial profiling.

What racial profiling does is re-enforce negative concepts that have been pre-determined regarding a person of a particular race or ethnic background; lumping them all in the same category of “potential” criminals, terrorist or illegal aliens and allowing for illegal searches, traffic stops and outright harassment. This is not good for a positive self image which could and does result in acting out just because you are already viewed as criminal on some level.

In the United States, the government does not even have the right to conduct racial profiling. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure without “probable cause”. The amendment specifically requires search and arrest warrants be judicially sanctioned, supported by “probable cause” and be limited in scope according to specific information supplied by a law enforcement officer who has sworn by it and is therefore accountable to the issuing court. Being black/brown and driving or Muslim and flying does not, in and of itself, constitute “probable cause”.

While the Bill of Rights, Fourth Amendment, which primarily applies to criminal law, only restricted the power of the federal government, The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to state governments by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, all state constitutions contain an analogous provision.

So how does racial profiling fit into this legality. Civil rights advocates are against the use of racial profiling tactics by the police. Some argue that the disproportionate number of convicted minorities is due to “racial profiling.”

In saying this however, they are admitting that had it not been for the illegal racial profiling, those arrested for crimes would be free to continue their criminal behavior because it was as a result of racial profiling that they are now convicted criminal.

Conversely, it is argued that including race as one of the several factors in suspect profiling is generally supported by the law enforcement community within the Western world. It is claimed that profiling based on any characteristic is a time-tested and universal police tool, and that excluding race as a factor is insensible.

On the other hand police are allowing their personal, racist preferences to guide them in their decisions on just who to stop and search, which is an abuse of the rule and an invitation to harass a specific racial group. As with the case of Omar J. Edwards, no stop was made just bullets flying. Those bullets did not come from Edwards because even though his gun was in his hand, he never fired a shot.

In the United States, statistically, black drivers are much more likely to have their car stopped and searched than white drivers. One explanation for this observation is that police officers have a racist preference, making them more likely to search a car driven by a black motorist and racial profiling aids in this preference to stop black drivers.

To say that police officers have no racial preferences is a lie. Police officers are only human and they are not immune to racial/ethnic biases. For this reason, race should never be considered the primary or motivating factor for suspicion except in the case of a “be on the lookout”, where hair color, height, weight, distinguishing marks and race would be a means of identifying a suspect. Even in this scenario abuse of power has been observed in that police have stopped and questioned blacks who did not even fit the description of the “be on the lookout” that was issued.

Critics claim racial profiling prevailed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, as law enforcement initially focused time and resources on two men of Middle Eastern descent when in actuality, Timothy McVeigh was identified and arrested fewer than two days after the attack.

In the case of Assem Bayaa, a man of Middle Eastern descent, who boarded a plane in Los Angeles in 2001, but was asked, by the pilot, to disembark the plane because he made other passengers uncomfortable, the district judge ruled that a pilot’s discretion “does not grant them a license to discriminate”.

Racial profiling is racist, discriminatory, biased and subjective and should not be used in the broadest interpretations being used today. Being a cop is hard but when you expect the worst from people, that’s exactly what you get. Try being on guard but expecting the best and see where that leads.

And that’s the way I see it!!!

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