Even other cops get racially profiled by the NYPD

[bit_pattern]

Even other cops feel threatened by their colleagues' behaviour - it's hard do deny that the NYPD is infected with institutionalised racism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-usa-police-nypd-race-insight-idUSKBN0K11EV20141223

Reuters interviewed 25 African American male officers on the NYPD, 15 of whom are retired and 10 of whom are still serving. All but one said that, when off duty and out of uniform, they had been victims of racial profiling, which refers to using race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime.

The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.

And when officers try to remedy the injustice, this is the kind of response they face

The black officers interviewed said they had been racially profiled by white officers exclusively, and about one third said they made some form of complaint to a supervisor.

All but one said their supervisors either dismissed the complaints or retaliated against them by denying them overtime, choice assignments, or promotions. The remaining officers who made no complaints said they refrained from doing so either because they feared retribution or because they saw racial profiling as part of the system.

In declining to comment to Reuters, the NYPD did not respond to a specific request for data showing the racial breakdown of officers who made complaints and how such cases were handled.

When police officers are subject to such random humiliations then what hope do young, black men have when dealing with the NYPD?

 

[The Fool]

Even other cops feel threatened by their colleagues' behaviour - it's hard do deny that the NYPD is infected with institutionalised racism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-usa-police-nypd-race-insight-idUSKBN0K11EV20141223



And when officers try to remedy the injustice, this is the kind of response they face



When police officers are subject to such random humiliations then what hope do young, black men have when dealing with the NYPD?

Is there any data to say that this is a particular issue in the NYPD? as against other police forces? Being black in charge of an expensive car will get you pulled over in Australia too.....

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Is there any data to say that this is a particular issue in the NYPD? as against other police forces? Being black in charge of an expensive car will get you pulled over in Australia too.....

That doesn't make it any less of a problem. Quite the opposite, I would think.

 

[newyorkguy]

When you read this news story it's like somebody pulled back the curtain on reality. Reading some of the comments by defenders of police violence it's like they're from an alternate reality.

I have no particular beef with the cops. I have a relative who is retiring next year after thirty years with NYPD. I have a very good friend who retired in October after thirty years. I have another good buddy who retired on disability after twenty years as a cop in New York. (He was directing traffic during a period when traffic lights were out, was hit by a car making an illegal turn and suffered a career-ending hip fracture.)

They have all told me at various times to "Watch yourself around some of these guys, there's some real lunatics in the police department." They sure didn't sugar coat it the way de Blasio did and...I'm white!

 

[Arisia]

When you read this news story it's like somebody pulled back the curtain on reality. Reading some of the comments by defenders of police violence it's like they're from an alternate reality.

I have no particular beef with the cops. I have a relative who is retiring next year after thirty years with NYPD. I have a very good friend who retired in October after thirty years. I have another good buddy who retired on disability after twenty years as a cop in New York. (He was directing traffic during a period when traffic lights were out, was hit by a car making an illegal turn and suffered a career-ending hip fracture.)

They have all told me at various times to "Watch yourself around some of these guys, there's some real lunatics in the police department." They sure didn't sugar coat it the way de Blasio did and...I'm white!

It was amazing watching the head of the NYPD police union as he accused everyone in NYC who didn't fully support the police of having blood on their hands, even if all they were saying was 'hey, there are a few rotten apples in the barrel'.

 

[Ammonitida]

Even other cops feel threatened by their colleagues' behaviour - it's hard do deny that the NYPD is infected with institutionalised racism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-usa-police-nypd-race-insight-idUSKBN0K11EV20141223



And when officers try to remedy the injustice, this is the kind of response they face



When police officers are subject to such random humiliations then what hope do young, black men have when dealing with the NYPD?

Looks like selection bias.

 

[bit_pattern]

Looks like selection bias.

It's not saying "(x)% of police will be racially profiled", it simply recounts experiences of cops who have been profiled. Of course there's a selection bias, it's journalism, not a bloody research project. Does that make their experiences any less real or relevant?

 

[bit_pattern]

They have all told me at various times to "Watch yourself around some of these guys, there's some real lunatics in the police department." They sure didn't sugar coat it the way de Blasio did and...I'm white!

Maybe prospective cops need to be subjected to some more extensive psychological profiling before being allowed to become cops?

 

[newyorkguy]

I don't see any basis for accusing Reuters of using selective bias in the interviews they did. I do understand that, if for some reason you wanted to discredit the report, a "selective bias" accusation might be one of the few ways you could try and do it.

Police departments have upgraded their hiring practices in recent years. I believe some require at least an associate degree in criminal justice. The issue looks a lot different when you see it from the perspective of senior police commanders. Look at the experiences lionking has written about in another thread regarding big city policing. Someone else wrote here about dropping out of a police academy class because about half the candidates were people who wanted to be cops primarily to have the opportunity to harass people. He said he had no desire to spend a career around them. Many police departments have a fairly high turnover with employees. It's a tough job and some departments lose up to half their new employees in the first year or two.

In New York I knew a uniformed police sergeant who was put in charge of an anti-street crime unit working several blocks around a large housing project. Residents had been complaining about rampant street drug sales and all the problems that causes. The precinct agreed to send in a special uniformed force to try and impact it. The sergeant said he tried to get some of "the older guys" to volunteer but they didn't want to. It was all foot work and "they want to be in a car." Instead he was assigned three rookie cops. He told me they were all young white men who were from the suburbs. He said they were often more trouble than a lot of the people on the street. That he spent more time trying to cool them off than he did anything else. He explained to them over and over that, "If you lean on some of these guys in front of their friends they're going to react. You got to use some tact, some street smarts." He said the problem was, "They were middle-class guys who grew up in the suburbs; they don't have any street smarts." He said of the three, one picked it up pretty quickly and became pretty effective. One seemed to be a lost cause and the other was basically just out there to earn a paycheck.

In some of the current incidents it's mostly the rank-and-file people, or the unions, who are very strident and defensive. In Ferguson the police chief said he visited the Brown family and told them how much he regretted what happened, that he could not imagine what they were going through. I saw him interviewed and he seemed reasonably sincere. Most commanders want incidents handled without the resort to deadly force if that's possible. Officers get into all kinds of dangerous confrontations everyday and the vast majority end without anyone -- including the officer -- getting hurt. That's the best result. The problem is, as commanders say, for their own safety as well as the public's, officers have to have a lot of leeway in how they respond. The problem is it's hard to set the parameters in such a way that the bad apples won't take advantage of that.

 

[luchog]

Maybe prospective cops need to be subjected to some more extensive psychological profiling before being allowed to become cops?

Testing doesn't need to be more extensive, it's already fairly extensive. It's the focus of the testing, and qualifications for employment, that need to be changed. For example, police departments can legally discriminate against applicants who are too intelligent[/i]. That right there is a pretty sad indication of the quality of police recruiting.

I've read writings from others in law enforcement about the testing that they undergo (don't have links handy); and they also tend to screen people who demonstrate too much flexibility in their thinking, which supposedly makes them less likely to obey orders, and more likely to question their superiors.

 

[eeyore1954]

Maybe prospective cops need to be subjected to some more extensive psychological profiling before being allowed to become cops?

You don't think NYPD doesn't already have testing?

I am surprised if that many actually experienced something they thought was bad more did not report it and follow up on it.

 

[eeyore1954]

Is there any data to say that this is a particular issue in the NYPD? as against other police forces? Being black in charge of an expensive car will get you pulled over in Australia too.....

My wife has been pulled over for being white while driving a Lexus slow in "Mastic Beach" (At the time it was an area with more than one house/corner where drugs are sold).
After being pulled over the police asked her what she was doing there.

 

[newyorkguy]

Testing doesn't need to be more extensive, it's already fairly extensive. It's the focus of the testing, and qualifications for employment, that need to be changed. For example, police departments news link can legally discriminate against applicants who are too intelligent[/i]. That right there is a pretty sad indication of the quality of police recruiting.

I've read writings from others in law enforcement about the testing that they undergo (don't have links handy); and they also tend to screen people who demonstrate too much flexibility in their thinking, which supposedly makes them less likely to obey orders, and more likely to question their superiors.

ETA - I previewed the above post because I wanted to change the link so it would be clickable. Apparently I clicked on post rather than preview. Then when the link opened it froze up my computer (Chrome on WinXP) and here we are. (I had to reboot.)

Anyway, the ABC news story is from fourteen years ago and the incident happened in 1996. A Connecticut man applied to the New London CT police. He was rejected for scoring "too high" on the intelligence test. The police said the reason for that was, applicants who are highly intelligent may become bored with police work and quit. Then the city is out the money they spend training them. That does seem like a fairly legitimate concern.

I've never heard that departments refuse to hire people of high intelligence because they may be more likely to "refuse orders" and be too flexible in their thinking. It's possible I suppose.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

It's not saying "(x)% of police will be racially profiled", it simply recounts experiences of cops who have been profiled. Of course there's a selection bias, it's journalism, not a bloody research project. Does that make their experiences any less real or relevant?

What evidence is there that they were racially profiled? I'm not seeing any.

I've lost count of how many times I've been told by non-white friends or acquaintances of how they were treated a certain way because of their race, only to later be confronted by incontrovertible evidence that their treatment had absolutely NOTHING to do with their race (one is example is when a Mexican co-worker was woefully lamenting the fact that a female customer had asked him to wash his hands before preparing a drink for her, all because he was Mexican, and it was so horrible that he had to deal with this constant prejudice. Later, the same female customer came in and asked ME to wash MY hands before I prepared a drink for her, proving that her request had NOTHING to do with race, and adding one more sample to the pool of evidence that vast numbers of people cry racism when none exists).

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

As for black people being pulled over while driving fancy cars, cry me a river. More white people are pulled over while driving fancy cars than black people are, but they don't get to blame it on their race. They actually have to accept responsibility for whatever they're actually being pulled over for, not whine about racism.

My standard question to any acquaintance claiming that they were pulled over for being black is, how did the police officer know that they were black before they were pulled over, as generally, police cars approach from behind. I have not once received a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it is POSSIBLE for a car to drive past a stationary police officer, and for the officer to see the driver was OH MY GOD, BLACK, and then swing into hot pursuit. However, this has never been the case in any of the stories I have heard. The black drivers being horrendously persecuted for "driving while black" have always been pulled over the way any other person is pulled over: on the street or highway, and signaled to stop by a police officer from behind.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

I am surprised if that many actually experienced something they thought was bad more did not report it and follow up on it.

I'm not surprised at all, because doing so would have likely revealed that there were perfectly valid reasons for what happened that had nothing to do with their race, and they would thereby be deprived of the apparently precious illusion that black people regularly face persecution because of their skin color.

 

[newyorkguy]

Maybe prospective cops need to be subjected to some more extensive psychological profiling before being allowed to become cops?

That would help. Of course it depends on who is doing the testing:

Emily Dearden, a psychologist with the New York Police Department, has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting her husband in 2013...Kenneth Dearden was shot while he was sleeping, the newspaper said. Emily Dearden told responding police officers she had been attacked by an intruder, but police found no signs of forced entry, the home’s alarm never went off and the family’s dog didn’t react, according to the report... NJ.com news link

Police allege Emily Dearden was reportedly involved in an extramarital affair, and wanted husband Kenneth Dearden out of the picture to avoid a messy divorce. The New York Post also reported the allegations citing a lawsuit filed by Kenneth Dearden against his wife.

 

[Polaris]

My wife has been pulled over for being white while driving a Lexus slow in "Mastic Beach" (At the time it was an area with more than one house/corner where drugs are sold).
After being pulled over the police asked her what she was doing there.

My brother and I were pulled over for being white in a beat up old car on a Saturday night in a very hispanic area...in other words, there to buy drugs (which we were, but that's neither here nor there). I say this with such certainty because there's nothing illegal about signaling and then crossing two empty lanes of road to pull into a 7-11 (his excuse for pulling us over), and because he didn't even issue a warning, let alone mention a ticket.

All he did was ask me to unravel a balled up straw wrapper to prove that's what it was.

 

[newyorkguy]

My brother and I were pulled over for being white in a beat up old car on a Saturday night in a very hispanic area...in other words, there to buy drugs (which we were, but that's neither here nor there). <snip>

The cop suspected you were in the neighborhood to buy drugs, you admit you were there for that purpose, but that's not relevant? Is this supposed to prove that black people are not profiled by police?

My wife has been pulled over for being white while driving a Lexus slow in "Mastic Beach" (At the time it was an area with more than one house/corner where drugs are sold). After being pulled over the police asked her what she was doing there.

Umm... What was she doing there anyway?

 

[Giordano]

As for black people being pulled over while driving fancy cars, cry me a river. More white people are pulled over while driving fancy cars than black people are, but they don't get to blame it on their race. They actually have to accept responsibility for whatever they're actually being pulled over for, not whine about racism.

My standard question to any acquaintance claiming that they were pulled over for being black is, how did the police officer know that they were black before they were pulled over, as generally, police cars approach from behind. I have not once received a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it is POSSIBLE for a car to drive past a stationary police officer, and for the officer to see the driver was OH MY GOD, BLACK, and then swing into hot pursuit. However, this has never been the case in any of the stories I have heard. The black drivers being horrendously persecuted for "driving while black" have always been pulled over the way any other person is pulled over: on the street or highway, and signaled to stop by a police officer from behind.

I know of at least two black students who were forced by police (in my nice little Californian college town) to prove ownership when they dared to open the trucks of their own (relatively new) cars. I know of no white student who was even questioned by the police in any way under equivalent circumstances. This paralleled similar circumstances where the two black students were repeatedly questioned by police when just walking to a restaurant in town, or approaching their own homes. I know of zero such situations with white students. Or white anybody. I would add that the black students dressed much better and more formally than I did.

No, two is not a statistically significance number, but I certainly would not dismiss any such claim as absurd use of the "race card." I feel (which I am allowed to do prior to an intellectual proof) that racial profiling by the police still persists, and in places you might never suspect.