Traffic stop racism?

[chula]

*Originally posted by k2dave *
There was a study by the US DoJ showing that blacks were speeding more then whites on the NJ turnpike (this was in response to claims of racial profileing). IIRC something like 10:1 on the southern turnpike while about even in the conjested section by NYC.

We’re definitely going to need a cite for that.

There’s lots of information out there on racial profiling, though no systematic, nation-wide studies have been done. Here’s a sample of what I found:

In 1995 a New Jersey state judge threw out charges against fifteen black drivers who, the judge said, had been pulled over without cause. During the trial it emerged that on a 26-mile long stretch on the southern part of the New Jersey Turnpike minorities accounted for 46 percent of the drivers stopped, even though they were only 15 percent of the speeders.

In 1992, the Maryland State Police’s Criminal Intelligence Division developed a “Confidential Criminal Intelligence Report”, which troopers used to make stops and searches based on race. The report encouraged troopers in Allegheny County to increase searches of black male drivers by saying that “the county is currently experiencing a serious problem with the incoming flow of crack cocaine”. The Intelligence Report professed that “the dealers and couriers (traffickers) are predominantly black males and females”.

White motorists make up 78 per cent of Maryland highway traffic, while black drivers account for about 17 per cent and other minorities about 5 percent in the state. When the Wilkins data were submitted to the court in late 1998, they showed that between January 1, 1995 and December 15, 1997, more than 70 per cent of the people who were stopped and searched on Interstate 95 were black and about 77 per cent were minorities. Only about 23 per cent were white. The data also revealed that the vast majority of drivers who were stopped and searched and not found to be carrying any drugs were also black, more than 67 percent. The ACLU has used such data to bring a class action suit against the Maryland state police.

http://www.counterpunch.org/drivingblack.html

See also:
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/03justice/dwb01.htm
http://www.lamberthconsulting.com/downloads/washingtonpost_article.doc (Word file)

[Tristan]

My former co-worker and now best friend used to claim he was pulle over constantly for bullshit reasons.

I blew him off until I started getting a ride with him to work. It was totally true.

His car at the time: a red 1995 Civic, lowered but still within legal limits, no part ever stolen. Receipts and boxes still in his garage, in fact. He didn’t speed, because he figured money for tickets could go to more stuff for his car.

They would pull us over, usually for his exhaust, ignore the DMV noise test that showed he was still legal, ignore his print out of the DMV law regarding exhaust noise, ticket him anyways. If he complained even once, they would do a walk around the car and ticket him for anything they could think of.

He once got cited for “tires not designed for vehicle weight”.

Another one of my friends, while getting a ticket for his exhaust, was buzzed by a 5.0 mustang with glasspacks. When he asked the cop why he wasn’t giving that guy a ticket for his REALLY illegal exhaust, the cop said, no joke, “Because that sounds good, son.”

Fighting the god fight is tiring.

[Tristan]

er… good fight. The god fight is a whole other thread.

[Eva_Luna]

I live in Chicago, and the phrase “DWM”" (for “Driving While Mexican”) is common usage around here.

I used to work in Immigration Court (as an interpreter, BTW, and I’m not Hispanic or a racist, so I had no vested interest in the outcome of these cases for the most part). For a while there, there were many deportation cases brought about when some of the NW suburban police departments allowed INS officers to ride with them in the back seat. (The locals were not at all happy about the huge explosion in the Hispanic population; the culture clashes were all over the papers at the time.)

Now, a certain percentage of the new Hispanic population in these areas did not have legal immigration status, but it’s not legal to stop someone based on appearance alone, so what the cops would do was make up some B.S. story about how these people “resembled a known gang member,” and were stopped for that reason. (That was when they couldn’t find something like a busted taillight for probable cause.) The resemblance? “Young Hispanic male, late teens to late twenties, average weight/height, black hair, brown eyes.” Now obviously this description fit just about everyone in the neighborhood in question, but when defense counsel would press for more detail, the prosecution would say that they didn’t have to provide any further information because that would “jeopardize an ongoing investigatiopn.” It was a lose/lose situation for the person in deportation proceedings.

Now I don’t know how many people were arrested and released, or whatever happened to these deportation cases (because I sure as hell hope someone appealed them, or that there was a class action or something, but that would have been in a differrent court). But it was plainly obvious to me that the cops were stopping people for their Hispanic appearance.