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[Cacia]

old blondes?

Thall, recently in Hawaii it became a big issue because boaters don't want to carry ID and I think they won legally

thank God for the native fishing Hawaiians they cut a lot of crazy laws off at the knees

I'm not saying I know, I'm asking for clarification

the Nevada case must have set some precedent or why would it make it to the SC?

 

[TJcop]

It's a fact that traffic stops are a major form of abuse (blonds, young women, minorities, etc.).

Oh boy....here we go...

And what do you base those FACTS on??

 

[mike_s]

Ok, before this thread gets out of hand....

[snip]

And, where I'm from, we routinely make fun of trooper hats, we call them screw tops. .

have you ever said "Meow" during a traffic stop?

 

[Hallmac]

Oh boy....here we go...

How long have you been waiting for that statement to surface?

 

[Thalassamania]

Sorry I can't recall the exact reference - as best I remember it was a paper from the Dept. of Justice concerning traffic stops by State Police. If memory serves not all agencies were guilty, but some most definitely were, including a state I was living in.

Here in Hawaii, my observation of the problem suggests that the situation amongst the local police is very biased against young women and minorities. There's an almost twice weekly traffic enforcement effort (seatbelt, registration, insurance, safety inspection and speed) down the hill from where I live and I try to notice who has been stopped ... very few "respectable" white guys or older white women ... lots of Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, young attractive females, etc. Maybe that correlates with those who flaunt the law, I don't know for sure ... the police just waive hello to me and older guys like me who drive "clean" cars.

 

[Cacia]

HPD yes, I'd say women and tourists (based on over ten years)

don't really have minorities

 

[TJcop]

*snip*...older guys like me who drive "clean" cars.

Maybe you could re-write that last line as ...guys like me who drive properly registered, insured and are wearing seatbelts.

Sometimes we jump to conclusions very quick based off of not seeing the totality of the circumstances. Although, I have to admit, officers are like apples...there are rotten ones out there. But, that goes for just about any job...it's just that we're in the public eye.

 

[Cacia]

How do ticket quotas work?

how would police officers receive political pressure?

from the city council?

or less directly

 

[TJcop]

How do ticket quotas work?

how would police officers receive political pressure?

from the city council?

or less directly

Ticket quotas don't work. They're illegal. We can have citation numbers based off of shift performance though. I use a system that calculates the number of citations per man/day worked. Basically it comes up with a number (say .9) that is applied to the number of days your worked during that period. So if you worked 20 days, then you would be considered performing satisfactory if you issued 18 or more citations.

Political pressure rarely affects us. In 13 years I've never been told to write more citations due to budgetary issues. Truthfully, traffic citations account for very little in the part of revenue. Most of it goes to the state and into law enforcement training funds. Parking citations on the other hand....

 

[mike_s]

It's a fact that traffic stops are a major form of abuse (blonds, young women, minorities, etc.).

Oh boy....here we go...

And what do you base those FACTS on??

I've actually see that first hand.


Here is an example. In Atlanta they used to have a "black college student spring break" called Freak-Nik. (sp?).

it bascially brought about 250,000 young college black kids to Atlanta the about 3rd weekend in april every year.

They basically took over the downtown area, putting 4 to 10 kids per hotel room and causing damage to the hotels,etc.... now this has nothing to do with the fact they were black. you put 100k to 150k of college kids of any race in hotel rooms, overpack them and add drinking, you're gonna get damage no matter what race they are.

Now there was some other damage that was usually highly profiled on local TV. Typically cars on the streets being spray painted, glass store front windows being broken out, etc. this was caused by maybe 1% of the people going.

however, the TV stories painted a bad image of the event and the result of bottle neck traffic, crowds, etc meant that "normal shoppers" wouldn't go downtown and it really hit retailers hard.


The state of Georgia wanted to put a stop to Freak-Nik. and they went all out.


but here is where the racial profiling came in.


I remember driving down I-20 towards the state line, not knowing that it was Freaknik weekend and seeing a lot of young college age black men driving nice cars. I figured "hmm.... it must be Freaknik this weekend as I knew it was sometime in April".

as we crossed the state line in very light traffic, 3 cars of black college students and my car in a group, about 5-6 state patrol cars pulled out. The first car pulled up beside me and noticed I was not black, and then pulled forward and pulled over the first car. The second, thirst, and fourth patrol cars all did the same thing, looking at me, seeing I was not black, and pulled over the other cars.

If I had not being going to Freaknik, but happened to be black college age, I would have been pulled over also.

Yes I know the way the cops treated this is racism... and I think it's wrong.




but these kids were pulled over based on racial profiling, flat and simple.

I'm not saying all cops are that way.... but it sure gives a bad image.