In a fascinating NYT article on overzealous marijuana policing in New York City, I found this rather revealing passage:
4th Amendment
Today’s Supreme Court Ruling is Bad, But not as Bad as it Sounds
Today’s Supreme Court ruling in Virginia v. Moore upheld the use of evidence seized during arrests that are illegal under state law. It’s a terrible ruling to be sure, but it’s hardly the deathblow to our 4th Amendment rights that some may assume. As always, we hope concerned citizens will take a moment to learn what the ruling does and does not do and remember that asserting your constitutional rights during police encounters remains the best choice.
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Are Racist Cops Better Organized Than We Thought?
This is just chilling:
INSIDE the locker of a narcotics cop, Philadelphia police officials recently made a shocking discovery: A cartoon of a man, half as an officer in uniform and half as a Klansman with the words: “Blue By Day – White By Night. White Power,” according to police officials.
…Schweizer, 33, joined the force in June 1997 and makes $54,794 a year, city payroll records show. He became part of the elite Narcotics Strike Force about six years ago. As an undercover, plainclothes cop who worked day and night shifts, Schweizer was part of a surveillance team that watched drug buys and locked up hundreds of suspected drug dealers. He frequently testified in court as a witness for prosecutors. [Philadelphia Daily News]
Racial disparities abound in the war on drugs, but most analysis of the drug war’s disparate impact focuses on institutional bias. Rarely are we confronted with such a disturbing window into the racist mindset of an individual officer. Such beliefs render one thoroughly unqualified to carry out law-enforcement duties in any capacity and raise serious questions about this officer’s past actions.
More troubling, however, is the possibility that Schweizer is just the tip of the iceberg. Is he a cartoonist? Did he draw the thing himself, or is there a larger organization that produces and markets police-themed racist merchandise to a clientele of closeted white supremacist police officers? I don’t know the answer, but this poster sounds like a logo for something very creepy.
Of course, this is just one anecdotal incident, but when such revelations occur within an institution with such a hideously rich tradition of racial bias, it certainly doesn’t feel like a coincidence. It is an unflattering portrait of our criminal justice system that adherents to such ideology are able to assimilate within it. Indeed, had he merely possessed the wisdom to keep racist cartoons out if his locker, this officer would still be hard at work filling our prisons with young black and Hispanic drug offenders.
Severe Police Tactics in Suburbia
I’m about to dive into a three-part series in The Philadelphia Inquirer investigating heavy-handed policing tactics in suburbia.
It makes me proud that my hometown paper has the balls to allow writer Mark Fazlollah to delve so deeply into a chronically underreported social problem.
… ContinuedPolice Have Been Tasering Lots of People Lately
Horrifying videos of police tasering people are finding their way onto the internet with alarming frequency as of late. This one from Utah has caused quite a stir:
Racial Profiling: Another DOJ Cover-up?
A new report from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) shows that black and Hispanic drivers are significantly more likely to be searched, arrested and subjected to the use of force than whites.
It was initially encouraging to see the DOJ release this year’s report without any shenanigans considering what happened last time:
The Justice Department intervened, insisting that BJS not publicize that nasty part about minority drivers being more likely to be searched, arrested, handcuffed, beaten, maced, or bitten by dogs.
A conflict emerged in the course of which BJS Director Lawrence A. Greenfeld was removed from his post. His attempt to provide the media with an unbiased summary of his agency’s findings was apparently too much for his superiors at the DOJ. Ultimately, no press release was sent out, and the study was unceremoniously posted in the bowels of the BJS website.
Perhaps it’s a sign of progress and lessons learned that DOJ declined to bury this year’s equally shocking findings. After all, covering up racial profiling is one way – however shameful and undignified – of admitting that it exists.
Yet, upon closer inspection, we find that this year’s BJS report omits the single most important piece of information contained in the previous report: hit-rate data showing whether minorities were more likely to be hiding contraband.
Likelihood of search finding criminal evidence
Searches of black drivers or their vehicles were less likely to find criminal evidence (3.3%) than searches of white drivers (14.5%), and somewhat less likely than searches of Hispanic drivers
(13%).
This revealing fact fundamentally undermines the sole premise from which police agencies and others have sought to defend ongoing racial disparities such as those revealed this week. Consider the following hypothetical (but really quite typical) debate with a racial profiling apologist:
RPA: There’s no such thing as racial profiling. Cops don’t even know the race of the driver until after they’ve made the stop.
Me: Who gets pulled over is only one part of the equation. The data show that minority drivers are more likely to be searched, arrested, and subjected to the use of force after being stopped…
RPA: Well, if that’s true it’s because those people committed more crimes.
Me: Actually, the data show that searches of white people are more likely to produce evidence of a crime.
RPA: Wow, you must have gotten straight A’s at the Al Sharpton Academy of Social Science.
Me: This data comes from the Department of Justice.
RPA: Hang on, I’m getting a call. Oh yeah, gotta take this. Good talk.
DOJ was able to provide a racial breakdown of hit-rates in its previous report (the one it buried) thus the omission of such information from this week’s report is highly conspicuous. And of course, DOJ’s previous attempts to cover up racial profiling data attest to the agency’s lack of candor and credibility on this issue.
The larger question then is why the Department of Justice seeks to downplay racial profiling in the first place. BJS reports primarily reflect the behavior of local law-enforcement agencies, not the feds. The only real embarrassment here for DOJ is its ongoing failure to provide adequate monitoring of police practices at the state level. An activist such as myself may be keenly aware of DOJ’s abdication of this responsibility, but I suspect that most people are not.
In any case, we’d be hard pressed to generate any further controversy surrounding cover-ups at the Department of Justice this season. Instead, let’s do our best to make sure everyone knows how to handle police encounters. No matter how thorough, a traffic stop report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics won’t save your ass on the New Jersey turnpike anyway.
Barry Cooper Says Consent to Searches
Flex Your Rights has eagerly anticipated Barry Cooper’s new video Never Get Busted Again: Vol.1 Traffic Stops, which finally arrived yesterday. After reviewing Cooper’s DVD, we’re disappointed to report that Never Get Busted badly misses the mark regarding consent searches.
We hope the following will not be interpreted as a rebuke of Cooper or his video, much of which we enjoyed. Still, we find it necessary to comment at length on his surprising advice.
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