Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling

When we ask what Racial Profiling means, people assume that police officers have the right to stop and question people for looking certain way for no reason. Yes this is true, this always happens around the world, within states, countries and counties. One reason why I hate this is because it’s really sad to think the same color, the same culture, or the same race as you treat you differently just because they have a badge. In my opinion that doesn’t mean that you could tell us what to do without giving us a reason.  That’s why are Government gave us laws so we could use them when its necessary but still cops could break the law because they have a badge and their supervisor isn’t there. According to the Fourth Amendment, “it prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires a warrant”. 

This always happen to people in the United States when they get stopped. A cop asks them if they could search your car and you say, yes that where you mess up because you gave them the right to check your car and if they find something, or not, you might go to jail because you are a person of color. Also Law enforcement always assumes people of race will commit crime. (Ex. Securities following you around the store.) Why because you see this going around the in the world. For example when they killed Brown, because he allegedly robbed a store doesn’t mean you have to shoot him 9 times. Also when they killed Oscar Grant for no reason, just because he was in a fight doesn’t seem like a good excuse to kill him publicly. Law enforcement also wants to Search and seize you for being in-group of 3-4 of minorities. This happens to me when I was at SFSU with 3 groups of friend and, yes we was smoking weed, but I saw a cop and put the blunt in the ground. He was just staring at me, I had smoke inside of me, and I started making a joke. My point is that cops will suspect that the colored people are doing something wrong.  Police always find ways to bust people. For example, “that minor traffic violations (e.g. speeding, broken tail-light, or expired registration) are not considered probable cause”. This means just because you have this problem doesn’t mean that a cop could search your car why because you never did anything wrong and he doesn’t have a warrant or the right to do so.

 I was in Point Richmond at beautiful small place where you could see the view, and then the cops show up there because someone called saying that we were attempting robbery. First of all I was smoking, Second of all I had no intention in robbing anyone. Police came up to my window and he asked me to put your window down and I was like, “I cant because I tinted my windows and also because I needed to know the reason for his visit. He got furious and opened my door, grabbed me by my shirt and said, “Put your hands up and the air!” I was very confused because I didn’t do anything wrong. I said,” Officers what’s the reason for you handcuffing me, and he replied, “Shut the fuck up! Stop asking question you don’t need to know!!”At that point I was upset because he violated my rights and he hurt me and put the handcuffs and sat me down. I was in pain and furious because racial profiling doesn’t mean they could search you. I don’t want to be minding my own business and getting stopped and questioned for a crime I was falsely accused of. This is why Racial Profiling is very wrong and cops should take in consideration how us civilians feel. That experience made me realize that I can be targeted again for something out of the ordinary and I just have to be very aware and cautious.

•    “Per 10,000 residents, the Black stop rate was 3,400 stops higher than the White stop rate, and the Hispanic stop rate was almost 360 stops higher.

•    Relative to stopped Whites, stopped Blacks were 127 percent more likely and stopped Hispanics were 43 percent more likely to be frisked.

•    Relative to stopped Whites, stopped Blacks were 76 percent more likely and stopped Hispanics were 16 percent more likely to be searched.

•    Relative to stopped Whites, stopped Blacks were 29 percent more likely and stopped Hispanics were 32 percent more likely to be arrested.

•    Frisked Blacks were 42.3 percent less likely to be found with a weapon than frisked Whites, and frisked Hispanics were 31.8 percent less likely to have a weapon than frisked Whites.

•    Consensual searches of Blacks were 37 percent less likely to uncover weapons, 23.7 percent less likely to uncover drugs, and 25.4 percent less likely to uncover any other type of contraband than consensual searches of Whites.

•                Consensual searches of Hispanics were 32.8 percent less likely to uncover weapons, 34.3 percent less likely to uncover drugs, and 12.3 percent less likely to uncover any other type of contraband than consensual searches of Whites.”

-TheLeadership Conferencehttp://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/the-reality-of-racial.html