Results tagged “racialprofiling”

In late September, two black detectives and one Pakistani detective were going door-to-door in Gravesend, Brooklyn, canvassing residents to investigate a possible hate crime. They were dressed in suits, not uniforms, and not one of them is white, so naturally someone assumed they must be pretending to be police officers. The Shomrim Jewish Community patrol raced to the scene, and 911 was called. When the detectives heard the call over the radio they identified themselves to the dispatcher, but a fight almost broke out when local cops arrived.

With the federal authorities continuing their investigation of an alleged terror plot with roots in Denver and Queens, some New York City Muslims have accused the feds and NYPD of racial profiling. Queens Islamic activist Monami Maulik said over the weekend, "An entire community and people and religion should not be profiled and characterized as terrorists because of certain investigations."

Because the brouhaha over Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest will never end, it's time for former Secretary of State Colin Powell to weigh in. While on Larry King Live last night, Powell, who said Gates is a longtime friend, said, "When you're faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him...I was taught that as a child. You don't argue with a police officer." He did suggest Gates was tired from his flight from China through NY and also wondered about the Cambridge police, "Once they felt they had to bring Dr. Gates out of the house and to handcuff him, I would have thought at that point some adult supervision would have stepped in and said, OK, look, it is his house. Come on. Let's not -- let's not take this any further. Take the handcuffs off. Goodnight, Dr. Gates." [Here's a transcript and video is after the jump.] Powell also discussed being racially profiled a few years ago—"You just suck it up"—and endorsed Mayor Bloomberg—"I think Mike Bloomberg should be given a third term. And yes, I would say, reelect Mike Bloomberg."

A few more details on the resignation of Lee Landor from her position as deputy press secretary to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The Post reports that the 24-year-old, whose Facebook postings about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. included calling Gates a racist, President Obama "O-dumb-a," and more, "resigned under pressure... from the $45,758-a-year job Monday after being told 'jump or be pushed,' according to a source."

The Cambridge, Massachusetts police released the 911 call that prompted the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.. It turns out the caller Lucia Whalen said, "I don't know if they live there or they just had a hard time with their key." You can listen to the tape here, and Whalen was apparently upset she was being depicted as a racist in the media; her attorney said, "She has worked in Cambridge for more than 15 years, about 100 yards from where Mr. Gates resides, and was aware of several recent break-ins in the area." The Boston Globe reports that in the recordings, "The dispatcher asked officers to 'respond to a possible B and E in progress,' saying the caller had reported they 'barged' into the house, but also noting, 'They have suitcases.'" Gates was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct, upset that the police arrived. Cambridge Chief of Police Robert Haas said, "July 16 is a painful moment for all of us. We need to move on. If we focus back on July 16, we are not going to make any progress." The incident became more of a flashpoint when President Obama waded into the discussion—now he has invited Gates and the police officer who arrested Gates, Sergeant James Crowley, for a beer at the White House this week.

Last night, President Obama took to primetime to discuss health care reform—or as the Washington Post puts it, he "confronted increasing doubts about the impact of widespread changes to the health-care system, seeking to assure middle-class Americans on Wednesday that the landmark legislation he envisions would improve their quality of life and is essential to curing the nation's economic ills." However, that part of his remarks seemed "lackluster" and "cautious and choreographed" compared his sharper, more passionate thoughts on the arrest of his friend, Harvard academic Henry Louis Gates Jr..

The NY Post reports today that the city will pay $25,000 to a Brooklyn man as part of a settlement deal in a case involving the NYPD. Jangir Sultan, a 32-year-old Brooklyn native of South Asian heritage, had sued the police for racial profiling after they stopped and searched him 21 times at different subway stations around the city. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne maintains the searches are conducted randomly, settlement nonwithstanding: "We did not stop him based upon his concerns...The fact that he was stopped for other reasons is untrue." Of course, the chances of being stopped 21 times for a truly random search are something astronomical, but sometimes it's easier to shell out a few grand than get bogged down in dirty details. Plus, it seems the police have their hands full with a different subway case anyway.

Despite the high percentages of minorities frisked among the hundreds of thousands stopped and questioned by the NYPD, the Daily News reports that very few are getting hit with any charges with ones as serious as criminal possession of a weapon accounting for just a fraction of those arrested. Their latest analysis comes from data released by the Center for Constitution Rights as part of their lawsuit accusing the NYPD of racial profiling. The News talks to one college student of mixed race who was stopped because the officer said he "looked like he had a gun on him" and his charges of disorderly conduct stemming from what the cop deemed "furtive actions" and "inappropriate attire" were eventually dropped when the officer failed to show up to a court date. NYPD spokeman Paul Browne defended the stop to arrest ratio saying, "Twenty individuals may be stopped and briefly questioned because they fit the general description. But only one [and maybe none] is eventually arrested."

The Center for Constitution Rights analyzed NYPD data between 2005 and the first half of 2008 and found, "approximately 80 percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise 25 percent and 28 percent of New York City’s total population, respectively. During this same time period, only approximately 10 percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise 44 percent of the city’s population."

Yesterday, the Daily News reported that one police officer was stripped of his badge and gun "for ordering the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed black officer out of his auto while the three-star chief was off-duty and parked in Queens." Naturally, the incident has sparked outrage from both sides.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit accusing the city and NYPD of racial profiling on behalf of a NY Post reporter who was "stopped, arrested and jailed without justification" last November.

Chances are you probably smoke pot, you are probably smoking it right now...at least according to the latest reports, which say that "the number of people arrested for small amounts of marijuana in New York City has increased tenfold in the past decade."