Pat-Downs Hit Middle America Where It Counts

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Pat-Downs Hit Middle America Where It Counts
By David Coleman


The recent outrage expressed by white males and females over intrusive airport pat-downs may have an upside. At least at the nation’s airports, non-minority airline passengers who seek to board an airplane are being sensitized to the indignities that are a routine part of the lives of some men of color who merely walk or drive down a street.

For reasons purportedly related to public safety, African-American, Hispanic and Asian males are disproportionately stopped and frisked by law enforcement officers on American streets and highways. Recent news stories have focused on the creation of a database from the 600,000 police detentions in New York each year. As the New York Times has reported from analysis of the data, frisks or pat-down searches occur in almost 60 percent of the stops and at a rate that is disproportionately higher for minorities. The rate of frisks for blacks and Latinos in New York is nine times that of whites who are stopped.

Although the creation of a database from the stops has fueled debate, the stop-and-frisk is not just a New York Police Department tactic or even an urban phenomenon. Police detentions and the concurrent clothing frisks are just as prevalent in other cities, suburbs and rural areas as in New York City.

Putting the “Frisk” in “Stop and Frisk”

In a seminal 1967 decision, Terry v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court decided that a brief detention (seizure) of a citizen is constitutionally permissible. Fourth Amendment protections do not preclude police from stopping citizens in their tracks to ask questions or conduct a brief investigation to dispel suspicion about the activity of the person stopped. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/pat-downs_hit_middle_america_where_it_counts_20101124/?ln

[maryf]

1. K&Rnt

[kath]

2. Thanks so much for this post - important food for thought.

K & R!

[soryang]

3. Except for a very small number of judges the 4th Amendment....

...is a joke.

[kath]

4. KIck - First they illegally searched the blacks and the Hispanics, and I didn't speak up...