In this video we see a perfect example of police profiling and the connection between race and place. Basically an former police officer and an independent news team conducts and experiment in a predominately white neighborhood in Long Island with a history of racial profiling by law enforcement. The former officer has a black student from one of his college classes who is a law abiding citizen act as the subject to see if racial profiling is practiced by the police in this area. They have him drive around in an older chevy muscle car late at night and make sure he does not commit any traffic violations which would give the officers a reason to pull him over. After the police notice him he makes a turn off the main road into a neighborhood and shortly after is pulled over by a women police officer. She repeatedly asks him where he is going and ends up pulling him out of the car as three other squad cars pull up on the scene. They end up handcuffing him and holding him for an hour while they search his car without consent.
I think this is a great example of how race intersects with place in defining police profiling practices. The police in this area had a strong sense that this black kid did not belong in this area which was mostly white. I think the type of car he was driving definitely lead to this suspicion and was meant to lure the officer in. However even Harris talked about how cops look at everything including the type of car and if they do not think it belongs that will strengthen their suspicion. In this case the police officer did not even have a traffic violation to pull him over for and still did so. She conducted a pretext stop which is common in racial profiling yet was unable to tell him why he was being pulled over because her only reason was suspicion. As we talked about in class many times when cops racially profile like this it influences societies outlook to minorities as well. In this case the police officer handcuffed him and searched his car at 3am. If anyone were to pass by they would automatically think this man had committed a crime and the police were simply doing their job. However this black college student did nothing wrong at all. A little bit later in the video an officer actually pulls over the car of the former police officer who is also black and was following the cops during this whole ordeal. The cop is unaware he is being filmed and when asked why he pulled him over responds, “because you were acting suspicious that’s why” proving he pulled him over for no other reason then to check him out and make sure he wasn’t up to anything.
Obviously in this video they are attempting to create a situation where an officer will get caught racially profiling and in that sense is may be somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the same time it doesn’t escape the fact that these officers were profiling and probably do it all the time. I think it is some cool insight into an actual situation of racial profiling and in El Dorado where there are many border communities this would also be a common occurrence I believe.
I think this article is an excellent example of how racial profiling has an ecological aspect to it - where race and place both influence a police officer's judgment. This race-and-place effect is very important in understanding the dynamics of the community and addressing how policing tactics should be used. Residential segregation really influences a police officer's behavior - as seen from your article, when a black person drives in an area that is predominantly white, he is more likely to be racially profiled. This is because the police officer uses policing tactics that are based on the structuring of the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI think this relates very well with Eldorado because it shows that in order for the community and the police to work together in unity, the police department needs to start by breaking down walls. The community has built up a strong negative association with the police and their legitimacy - and in order to make efforts to reconcile this problem, the police need to start showing more respect and better judgment when conducting traffic stops.
- ML
This video not only shows how vital race and place is when looking at racial profiling, but shows that the police have no regard for any form of law. The officer did not even attempt to disguise the stop under a traffic violation and proceeded to search the car without permission. There is no doubt that the police need to be held accountable for their actions and that there must be some way to force if not heavily persuade officers into doing so. The research has shown that racial profiling is more prominent in boundary areas, where the police understand that there is a mix of people travelling through these areas. It is important that in Eldorado with the influx of people coming into the area that people do not end up residentially segregated. If residential segregation is kept to a minimum then hopefully it will help to reduce racial profiling as no one will be able to considered “out of place”.
ReplyDeleteSiobhan Livingston
This video and your blog explicitly display the paradox of racial profiling permitted through the Wren decision. Law enforcement officials are still engaging int he illegal practice of racial profiling, because they have been giving the authority, through reasonable suspicion, to use race as a proxy to further investigate suspected criminal activity. In Eldorado, this can be seen as one of the biggest problems due to the waves of incoming residents, and the long-standing ethnically diverse population that are already there. The Eldorado article gave me the impression that there has yet to be ethnically distinct neighborhoods due to the shortage of available housing, everyone is living among each other (maybe with the exception of the border areas and Oakville). What the article shows, and Eldorado has to be very careful of, is the structural issue of how race can intersect with class and place to become increasingly segregated by residential areas. Law enforcement plays a significant role in enforcing segregation, or at least supporting and providing legitimacy to it.This video is reminiscent of predominantly white enclaves like Piedmont where it is noted that law enforcement is disproportionately stopping African Americans and Latinos is old cars, or particularly new cars. Eldorado needs to implement precautions, especially since the enactment of the SB1000 law, to ensure that their officers do not marginalize and victimize people based on ethnicity. Especially because the hit rates remain low.
ReplyDeleteSarah Phillips