Car-Profiling?

[Aco275RGR]

I think it's pretty dumb for someone in a minority neighborhood to accuse a police officer of racial profiling for pretty obvious reasons.

Now, however, what about Car-Profiling? If you see a fancy car in an impoverished neighborhood, we'll say a 2007 Escalade on 24" rims...and the driver doesn't look like a business executive, nor does his passengers...

What honestly happens.

[Gene L]

Profiling.

[JSD73]

There is nothing wrong with vehicle profiling.........

[Smurfette_76]

It's not profiling if it's "training and experience."

[Guams]

It's not profiling if it's "training and experience."

+1

[redbird07]

+1

Ditto

[pf217]

The press has made profiling into a word with an always negative meaning. Profiling can be good police work and requires you to be aware of your surroundings and what does not fit in. Finding things out of the ordinary is part of our job, and acting on the gut feelings that things are unusual can make us good at that job. The thought, "That doesn't seem right" often leads to a good, solid arrest. Sometimes the thought is pertaining to a car, sometimes a person. Stopping a person solely because of their race is wrong. But finding something out of place is simply finding something out of place, be it a person, a car, a box.

[EMVAMPYRE]

I work a station with a very wealthy area where BMW's are considered cheap kid cars. If I get lucky enough to see a 1971 El Camino with a blown muffler and more primer than Marina Blue on it, it's mine! It is out of place, and it's occupant is possibly preying on my city's residents.

[CruiserClass]

I tend to run a lot of plates. I run plates of cars around me at stoplights, I run plates of cars parked along the road, I run plates of cars in parking lots when the business is closed. Obviously I can't run every plate I see so I have to prioritize somehow. I guess that's profiling.

As an example I was patrolling a little subdivision a few day ago and saw a car parked with the rear end about two feet from the curb, parked facing the wrong direction, the windows rolled down, and the plate was expired. I could also see several cars parked correctly, properly secured, with current plates. It's obvious which your going to spend the most time on.

[LeanG]

What honestly happens.

Which answer do you want? The politically correct answer , or the truth?

[irishdep]

It's not profiling if it's "training and experience."

It's not profiling it's "selective enforcement"

[Fuzz]

I think it's pretty dumb for someone in a minority neighborhood to accuse a police officer of racial profiling for pretty obvious reasons.

Now, however, what about Car-Profiling? If you see a fancy car in an impoverished neighborhood, we'll say a 2007 Escalade on 24" rims...and the driver doesn't look like a business executive, nor does his passengers...

What honestly happens.

If there is a vehicle code violation then they get stopped. Good police work and many arrests/solved crimes comes from a cop acting legally on his instinct. If something doesnt look/feel/taste/smell right then it probably isnt.

[Gene L]

If there is a vehicle code violation then they get stopped. Good police work and many arrests/solved crimes comes from a cop acting legally on his instinct. If something doesnt look/feel/taste/smell right then it probably isnt.

Yes, but the very same situation occurred in an wealthy suburb of Chicago. It seemed like a dirproportionate of black drivers were being stopped. And statistics bore this out.

That's what started this profiling mess in the first place.

[Fuzz]

the original post said nothing of a black driver. It said a fancy vehicle in a poor area......that is something that might cause an officer to wonder what the vehicle is doing there. It could be a black/white/yellow/green/purple driver and still would not fit in the area. If it was La Jolla San Diego those are a dime a dozen and would not be out of place. Stopping someone solely based on their race is wrong......legally stopping something that does not fit in the area is good police work.

[Group 29]

Yes, but the very same situation occurred in an wealthy suburb of Chicago. It seemed like a dirproportionate of black drivers were being stopped. And statistics bore this out.

That's what started this profiling mess in the first place.

Yeah, but that's people who don't know what interdiction is, with no training, trying to make their best guess as to how you are supposed to do it. And, they are good interdiction programs worst problem because they have to carry their baggage.

People who don't know how the good interdiction officers do it, always assume they are just selecting blacks or minorities. I did interdiction for three years and I always laughed when someone said that, either police or citizen. It means they think that such a large percentage of minorities are committing crimes on a regular basis, that you can just pick them out at random and get dope and arrests, which is, of course, ridiculous.

And, of course, that doesn't explain how someone doing interdiction where everyone is a minority figures out who to approach.

Profile shouldn't be a dirty word, but the ACLU, NAACP, and a lot of other people have made it one for their own reasons. And, there are a lot of good automobile profiling techniques that do work, (and that have very little to do with the size rims on a vehicle, or the decibels of their speakers).

But, experience is a good teacher, and I don't think there are many guys around with much time on who think randomly stopping blacks or minorities is a good idea.