• Welcome to the Internet Infidels Discussion Board.

Racial bias of the Baltimore Police

 
 
 
Thanks LD. I was going to abandon this thread since it was obvious the posters didn't read the article and appear too narrow minded to consider they might be wrong. I do want to share one conversation I had on Thursday with a young black coworker. Apparently things in my small city aren't as good as I had hoped, although at least our police haven't shot any unarmed black folks AFAIK.

Asia is a lovely woman who I work with. She is one of the very low paid care givers in the long term care facility where I work part time as the only RN. She lives in my city and I asked her what she thought of the local police. According to her, things aren't all that rosy. She told me that a couple of years ago, her teenage daughter was stopped by security on her way out of Walmart. Although she had the receipts for her purchases, she was accused of changing the labels on the garments she had just purchased. The police were called, she was handcuffed and taken to jail. Despite the fact that she was underage and the police are supposed to notify the parent of any minor arrested, they left her in the cell for awhile before bothering to call. Asia, was also briefly locked up because she was so upset when she came to pick up her daughter.

Long story short. She had a court date and when she went before the judge, he dropped all the charges due to a total lack of evidence. The girl never changed the labels. The things she purchased were all marked down for clearance. Now, please don't tell me the young woman's race didn't have anything to do with the way she was treated. None of my white friends have ever experienced anything like this and sadly, I had some white friends when I was young that did their share of actual shoplifting. They never got caught. Okay. That's anecdotal but there is plenty of evidence to support my claim that Black people are suspected of being criminals more often than white people are in the US. It's really quite disturbing to me as a white person who has worked with and cared for many black people during my career.

And I find many of the comments here very disturbing. It makes me wonder if those of you who are so unwilling to understand the truth of this have had many black friends, coworkers, clients or neighbors. Y'all really need to get out more often.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
laughing dog said:
If you have bothered to read the linked article, you would have found nuggets like
The most pronounced racial disparities were in arrests for the most discretionary offenses: For example, 91 percent of those arrested solely for “failure to obey” or “trespassing” were African-American, even though the city is 63 percent black, the report found.

In one telling anecdote from the report, a shift commander provided officers with boilerplate language on how to write up trespassing arrest reports of people found near housing projects. The template contained an automatic description of the arrestee: “A BLACK MALE.”
Click to expand...

And the article contains a link to the actual DOJ report. So instead of pontificating from ignorance, read the article and the report and then possibly engage in some meaningful discussion.
Click to expand...

You are making the totally false assumption that whites and blacks commit crimes at the same rate. We know that's not true, thus showing a difference in the arrest rate shows nothing.

And if the actual arrest ratio is 91% then boilerplate that defaults that way is a reasonable shortcut. Again, you haven't proven racism.
Click to expand...

READ THE REPORT!!! Laughing Dog does not need to "prove racism". The DOJ determined there is.
 
“BPD Conducts Unconstitutional Strip Searches”

“Numerous Baltimore residents interviewed by the Justice Department recounted stories of BPD officers ‘jumping out’ of police vehicles and strip-searching individuals on public streets. BPD has long been on notice of such allegations: in the last five years BPD has faced multiple lawsuits and more than 60 complaints alleging unlawful strip searches. In one of these incidents — memorialized in a complaint that the Department sustained — officers in BPD’s Eastern District publicly strip-searched a woman following a routine traffic stop for a missing headlight. Officers ordered the woman to exit her vehicle, remove her clothes, and stand on the sidewalk to be searched. The woman asked the male officer in charge, “I really gotta take all my clothes off?” The male officer replied “yeah” and ordered a female officer to strip search the woman. The female officer then put on purple latex gloves, pulled up the woman’s shirt and searched around her bra. Finding no weapons or contraband around the woman’s chest, the officer then pulled down the woman’s underwear and searched her anal cavity. This search again found no evidence of wrongdoing and the officers released the woman without charges. Indeed, the woman received only a repair order for her headlight. “
Click to expand...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...practices-of-the-baltimore-police-department/

But according to Loren, police only go where the crime is :rolleyes:
 
southernhybrid said:
Long story short. She had a court date and when she went before the judge, he dropped all the charges due to a total lack of evidence. The girl never changed the labels. The things she purchased were all marked down for clearance.
Click to expand...

You realize it's possible to stick the clearance labels on different items?
 
“BPD’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Strategy Focused on African American Neighborhoods”

“In some cases, BPD supervisors have instructed their subordinates to specifically target African Americans for enforcement. A sergeant told us that in 2011 her lieutenant — a commander in charge of setting enforcement priorities for an entire police district during the shift — ordered the sergeant to instruct officers under her command to ‘lock up all the black hoodies’ in her district. When the sergeant objected and refused to follow this order, she received an “unsatisfactory” performance evaluation and was transferred to a different unit. The sergeant filed a successful complaint about her performance evaluation with BPD’s Equal Opportunity and Diversity Section, but BPD never took action against the lieutenant for giving the order to target “black hoodies” for enforcement.

“Similarly, as described above, in 2012 a BPD lieutenant provided officers under his command with a template for trespassing arrests that suggested officers would arrest exclusively African-American men for that offense. As in the first example, this directive is especially concerning because it came from a shift commander. These statements targeting African Americans for enforcement reinforce the statistical disparities in enforcement outcomes that we measured. The enforcement activities ordered by the BPD commanders — arresting African Americans for trespassing and finding any possible basis to arrest ‘black hoodies’ — are consistent with the racial disparities we found in BPD’s discretionary stops, searches, and misdemeanor arrests.”
Click to expand...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...practices-of-the-baltimore-police-department/
 
“BPD Arrests People Lawfully Present on Baltimore Streets in Violation of Due Process”

“We found evidence that BPD supervisors have explicitly condoned trespassing arrests that do not meet constitutional standards, and evidence suggesting that trespassing enforcement is focused on public housing developments. A shift commander for one of BPD’s districts emailed a template for describing trespassing arrests to a sergeant and a patrol officer. The template provides a blueprint for arresting an individual standing on or near a public housing development who cannot give a ‘valid reason’ for being there—a facially unconstitutional detention. Equally troubling is the fact that the template contains blanks to be filled in for details of the arrest, including the arrest data and location and the suspect’s name and address, but does not include a prompt to fill in the race or gender of the arrestee. Rather, the words “black male” are automatically included in the description of the arrest. The supervisor’s template thus presumes that individuals arrested for trespassing will be African American.

“One African-American man in his mid-fifties was stopped 30 times in less than four years. The only reasons provided for these stops were officers’ suspicion that the man was ‘loitering’ or ‘trespassing,’ or as part of a ‘CDS investigation.’ On at least 15 occasions, officers detained the man while they checked to see if he had outstanding warrants. Despite these repeated intrusions, none of the 30 stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge.”
Click to expand...

But according to Loren, police only go where the crime is :rolleyes:
 
“These and similar arrests identified by our investigation reflect BPD officers exercising nearly unfettered discretion to criminalize the act of standing on public sidewalks,”
Click to expand...

During a ride-along with Justice Department officials, a sergeant told a patrol officer to “clear a corner,” but the patrol officer said he had no reason to stop them.

“The sergeant replied, ‘Then make something up.’”
Click to expand...
(emphasis mine)

In one case, police stopped a black man wearing a hoodie in a “high crime area” because he “thought it could be possible that the individual could be out seeking a victim of opportunity.” The incident escalated with police — who had no legal reason to stop the man — beating the man in the face, neck and ribs and deploying a Taser on him twice.

The man was later taken to a hospital, and not charged with any offense. Yet later, the officer’s supervisor determined in a report that the “officers showed great restraint and professionalism.”
Click to expand...

But according to Loren, police only go where the crime is :rolleyes:
 
RavenSky said:
The incident escalated with police — who had no legal reason to stop the man — beating the man in the face, neck and ribs and deploying a Taser on him twice.
Click to expand...

But according to Loren, police only go where the crime is :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
You keep saying that. And yet in all your examples there's a crime where the police go. :poke_with_stick:
 
RavenSky said:
“In some cases, BPD supervisors have instructed their subordinates to specifically target African Americans for enforcement. A sergeant told us that in 2011 her lieutenant — a commander in charge of setting enforcement priorities for an entire police district during the shift — ordered the sergeant to instruct officers under her command to ‘lock up all the black hoodies’ in her district. When the sergeant objected and refused to follow this order, she received an “unsatisfactory” performance evaluation and was transferred to a different unit. The sergeant filed a successful complaint about her performance evaluation with BPD’s Equal Opportunity and Diversity Section, but BPD never took action against the lieutenant for giving the order to target “black hoodies” for enforcement.
Click to expand...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...practices-of-the-baltimore-police-department/
Click to expand...

Ok, now you've found a racist lieutenant. For the department to have zero racists would be a shock--you haven't shown a systematic problem.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
southernhybrid said:
Long story short. She had a court date and when she went before the judge, he dropped all the charges due to a total lack of evidence. The girl never changed the labels. The things she purchased were all marked down for clearance.
Click to expand...

You realize it's possible to stick the clearance labels on different items?
Click to expand...

I realize you believe that's the only possible explanation. And I realize why you believe that.

Do you?
 
Being black and near Baltimore...yeah. Knew about most of that already. As Michael Wood Jr. Said "You think black Americans were all just lying for the past hundred years?"
 
barbos said:
Maybe blacks are more likely to trespass or fail to obey than whites?
Click to expand...

"Failure to obey" is a purely subjective charge that is essentially bullshit to begin with. If a cop tells you to empty your pockets and you don't do it fast enough, he can charge you with failure to obey; if you flat out refuse to empty your pockets and say "I do not consent to a search without my lawyer present" he can just as easily say "Fine, whatever" and walk away annoyed with you.

The point is "discretionary offenses" are those where it is ENTIRELY up to the cop's interpretation of your behavior whether or not the offense actually took place. It's LITERALLY as simple as the cop deciding you need to be arrested and just up and doing it.
 
Crazy Eddie said:
barbos said:
Maybe blacks are more likely to trespass or fail to obey than whites?
Click to expand...

"Failure to obey" is a purely subjective charge that is essentially bullshit to begin with. If a cop tells you to empty your pockets and you don't do it fast enough, he can charge you with failure to obey; if you flat out refuse to empty your pockets and say "I do not consent to a search without my lawyer present" he can just as easily say "Fine, whatever" and walk away annoyed with you.

The point is "discretionary offenses" are those where it is ENTIRELY up to the cop's interpretation of your behavior whether or not the offense actually took place. It's LITERALLY as simple as the cop deciding you need to be arrested and just up and doing it.
Click to expand...
It's all true but it does not refute my point.
 
I suspect this racism has been overstated.
I've been abused by the Baltimore police on several occasions, and I'm white and well spoken.

Perhaps they're equal opportunity abusers.
 
barbos said:
Crazy Eddie said:
"Failure to obey" is a purely subjective charge that is essentially bullshit to begin with. If a cop tells you to empty your pockets and you don't do it fast enough, he can charge you with failure to obey; if you flat out refuse to empty your pockets and say "I do not consent to a search without my lawyer present" he can just as easily say "Fine, whatever" and walk away annoyed with you.

The point is "discretionary offenses" are those where it is ENTIRELY up to the cop's interpretation of your behavior whether or not the offense actually took place. It's LITERALLY as simple as the cop deciding you need to be arrested and just up and doing it.
Click to expand...
It's all true but it does not refute my point.
Click to expand...
Yes it does, because interpretation of whether any action constitutes a crime couple with discretion as to whether or not to arrest someone means that one cannot assume or determine whether a particular group actually commits more of that "crime" or if the police are simply more predisposed to arrest people from that group.
 
Crazy Eddie said:
barbos said:
Maybe blacks are more likely to trespass or fail to obey than whites?
Click to expand...

"Failure to obey" is a purely subjective charge that is essentially bullshit to begin with. If a cop tells you to empty your pockets and you don't do it fast enough, he can charge you with failure to obey; if you flat out refuse to empty your pockets and say "I do not consent to a search without my lawyer present" he can just as easily say "Fine, whatever" and walk away annoyed with you.

The point is "discretionary offenses" are those where it is ENTIRELY up to the cop's interpretation of your behavior whether or not the offense actually took place. It's LITERALLY as simple as the cop deciding you need to be arrested and just up and doing it.
Click to expand...
True, I mean why do you think the cops make sure to yell, "stop resisting!!" as they curb stomp the guy rolled up in the fetal position?

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom