I started this thread due to some questions raised here .
I watched 20 episodes of COPS, tracking the racial makeup of the suspects.
Note: There were a number of (uncounted) segments responding to auto accidents, house fires and other non-criminal contacts that I did not count in the totals below.
27 white
16 black
7 hispanic
1 asian
In a few cases where there were multiple suspects in one segment I counted that as “one” in the totals. For example, the 1 asian was 3 asian youths in a stolen car.
I did not try to track the racial makeup of the officers as sometimes a single officer was followed through an episode and others would be more than one . Also there were other officers involved when backing up the featured officer and it was too complicated trying to count everyone in the background. Informally, I did note a number of minority officers.
It seemed to me that very,very few of the suspects came across as dangerous, rather pathetic losers who have totally ruined their lives.
As an aside, my favorite “I didn’t do it” excuse.
Suspect is walking on street, sees police, starts to run thereby attracting attention. When he was apprehended, he claimed he had just been robbed of $100 and the muggers had forced the drugs into his pocket before they left. :rolleyes: 