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Crime set to go up in Texas Sept. 1
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The vehicle flew past the police officer's squad car at a high rate of speed -- well in excess of the posted limit. Darkly tinted windows kept the officer from seeing who was driving, but no matter. He switched on the light bar and pulled the car over.
As the officer approached the driver's side door, the dark window rolled down and an irate woman yelled at him.
"You only pulled me over because I'm black," the woman shouted.
The officer came to a dead stop. He leaned toward the car, told the woman to have a nice day and returned to his car.
Welcome to De-policing 2001. Expect to hear more about it as law enforcement agencies in Texas begin their experiment in combating "racial profiling" on Sept. 1. That's when the new statute goes into effect requiring officers to collect information about the people they stop -- in a car or on foot -- in the course of their duties. And they must record this information whether they make an arrest, write a citation or let the person go.
The data they gather -- including the gender and race or ethnicity of the individual stopped, the suspected offense, whether a search was conducted with or without the detainee's consent -- "shall not constitute prima facie evidence of racial profiling," so sayeth the law.
Oh, really? Tell that to the officers who are going to have to participate in this ridiculous exercise of political correctness.
It was a presumption of wrongdoing that propelled this legislation to the fore in the first place. Why, everyone `knows' that cops are racist so-and-so's, but the evidence was only anecdotal. With this new reporting system, the proof finally will be in hand.
Not prima facie evidence? Give me a break. That's exactly how it will be used by special-interest groups with axes to grind against law enforcement. Which is why I predict that municipalities across the state will see a drop in the number of officer-initiated citizen contacts in the months to come.
One Fort Worth police officer explained his reaction to the statute thusly: "Unless I'm specifically dispatched to a call, I'm not getting involved in anything unless my life or a life of a fellow officer is in jeopardy. I don't need to be labeled a racist just for doing my job."
De-policing, or abstaining from active policing efforts unless answering an assigned call, is not without precedent. After high-profile cases involving law enforcement officers that are tinged with racial undercurrents -- think New York City's Amadou Diallo or Cincinnati's Timothy Thomas -- officers pull back.
Who needs that hassle of being called a racist, put before a review board and investigated for possible civil rights violations for doing your job? Find a place to hole up until you get a specific call from dispatch.
The results of de-policing, at least in Cincinnati, are told in the crime statistics. Traffic stops were down 55 percent and arrests decreased by half in the three months since the April riots that occurred after a police shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old black man.
Shootings were up. According to the Cincinnati Police Department, the city logged 59 incidents involving 77 victims, compared with nine incidents involving 11 victims during the same three-month period last year.
Attorney Heather Mac Donald, a John M. Olin senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has extensively researched "racial profiling" for columns she writes for `City Journal.' For a Spring 2001 piece titled "The Myth of Racial Profiling," Mac Donald interviewed Police Chief Ed Flynn of Arlington County, Va., about his department's response to requests from residents in the black community to step up drug enforcement.
"They instituted aggressive motor-vehicle checks throughout the problem neighborhood. Cracked windshield, too-dark windows, expired tags, driving too fast? You're getting stopped and questioned," Mac Donald wrote.
"By the end of the summer, the department had cleaned up the crime hot spots. Community newsletters thanked the cops for breaking up the dealing. But guess what? Says Flynn: `We had also just generated a lot of data showing "disproportionate" minority arrests.' The irony, in Flynn's view, is acute. `We are responding to heartfelt demands for increased police presence,' he says. `But this places police departments in the position of producing data at the community's behest that can be used against them.' "
Yup, this racial profiling law is a peach of an idea. Beginning Sept. 1, when you ask the question, "Where's a cop when you need one?" the answer will likely be, "Laying low -- making sure he isn't doing anything that will get him labeled a racist."
[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Mike Sullivan ]
The vehicle flew past the police officer's squad car at a high rate of speed -- well in excess of the posted limit. Darkly tinted windows kept the officer from seeing who was driving, but no matter. He switched on the light bar and pulled the car over.
As the officer approached the driver's side door, the dark window rolled down and an irate woman yelled at him.
"You only pulled me over because I'm black," the woman shouted.
The officer came to a dead stop. He leaned toward the car, told the woman to have a nice day and returned to his car.
Welcome to De-policing 2001. Expect to hear more about it as law enforcement agencies in Texas begin their experiment in combating "racial profiling" on Sept. 1. That's when the new statute goes into effect requiring officers to collect information about the people they stop -- in a car or on foot -- in the course of their duties. And they must record this information whether they make an arrest, write a citation or let the person go.
The data they gather -- including the gender and race or ethnicity of the individual stopped, the suspected offense, whether a search was conducted with or without the detainee's consent -- "shall not constitute prima facie evidence of racial profiling," so sayeth the law.
Oh, really? Tell that to the officers who are going to have to participate in this ridiculous exercise of political correctness.
It was a presumption of wrongdoing that propelled this legislation to the fore in the first place. Why, everyone `knows' that cops are racist so-and-so's, but the evidence was only anecdotal. With this new reporting system, the proof finally will be in hand.
Not prima facie evidence? Give me a break. That's exactly how it will be used by special-interest groups with axes to grind against law enforcement. Which is why I predict that municipalities across the state will see a drop in the number of officer-initiated citizen contacts in the months to come.
One Fort Worth police officer explained his reaction to the statute thusly: "Unless I'm specifically dispatched to a call, I'm not getting involved in anything unless my life or a life of a fellow officer is in jeopardy. I don't need to be labeled a racist just for doing my job."
De-policing, or abstaining from active policing efforts unless answering an assigned call, is not without precedent. After high-profile cases involving law enforcement officers that are tinged with racial undercurrents -- think New York City's Amadou Diallo or Cincinnati's Timothy Thomas -- officers pull back.
Who needs that hassle of being called a racist, put before a review board and investigated for possible civil rights violations for doing your job? Find a place to hole up until you get a specific call from dispatch.
The results of de-policing, at least in Cincinnati, are told in the crime statistics. Traffic stops were down 55 percent and arrests decreased by half in the three months since the April riots that occurred after a police shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old black man.
Shootings were up. According to the Cincinnati Police Department, the city logged 59 incidents involving 77 victims, compared with nine incidents involving 11 victims during the same three-month period last year.
Attorney Heather Mac Donald, a John M. Olin senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has extensively researched "racial profiling" for columns she writes for `City Journal.' For a Spring 2001 piece titled "The Myth of Racial Profiling," Mac Donald interviewed Police Chief Ed Flynn of Arlington County, Va., about his department's response to requests from residents in the black community to step up drug enforcement.
"They instituted aggressive motor-vehicle checks throughout the problem neighborhood. Cracked windshield, too-dark windows, expired tags, driving too fast? You're getting stopped and questioned," Mac Donald wrote.
"By the end of the summer, the department had cleaned up the crime hot spots. Community newsletters thanked the cops for breaking up the dealing. But guess what? Says Flynn: `We had also just generated a lot of data showing "disproportionate" minority arrests.' The irony, in Flynn's view, is acute. `We are responding to heartfelt demands for increased police presence,' he says. `But this places police departments in the position of producing data at the community's behest that can be used against them.' "
Yup, this racial profiling law is a peach of an idea. Beginning Sept. 1, when you ask the question, "Where's a cop when you need one?" the answer will likely be, "Laying low -- making sure he isn't doing anything that will get him labeled a racist."
[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Mike Sullivan ]
Point taken.
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