January 15, 2008
Morning Roundup: Fire Away Edition
Good morning, Washington. Mayor Adrian Fenty actually fired the six employees he promised he would yesterday on Sunday night, reports the Post, with dismissal notices for the six reaching their homes at about 10 p.m. that night, about twelve hours before the mayor announced that he planned to fire them. None of the two social workers, two managers and two phone operators who worked at the Child and Family Services Agency have been named. Two other employees may yet be fired. Apart from allaying community concerns about the tragedy of the Jacks murders, Fenty appears to be trying to send a message to District employees with these rapid dismissals -- the mayor is looking for a reason to clean house, and when he finds one, he's not afraid to do it.
Police To Charge Ex-Boyfriend In Shaquita Bell Case: Officials will announce this morning that a murder warrant has been issued for the ex-boyfriend of Shaquita Bell, a D.C. woman who has been missing for 11 years. Bell was last seen on June 27, 1996, leaving her grandmother's house in Alexandria with her estranged boyfriend, Michael Dickerson. She was 23 when she disappeared. Police received a tip from Dickerson, who is currently serving 15 years on other charges, last summer, which led K-9 units to find possible clues in a field in Fort Washington, Md.
MPD to Increase Presence in Adams Morgan and Shaw: The Examiner reports that the Metropolitan Police Department has plans to increase their presence in Adams Morgan after a recent rash of robberies, and in Shaw in an attempt to quell recent gang violence. Police will reportedly hold outdoor roll calls in both neighborhoods and deploy foot patrols to visit with residents every day. Officers have also been asked to stop anyone who is acting suspiciously and check their names for existing warrants.
Briefly Noted: Montgomery College enacts three-month hiring freeze ... Cars pile up after accident on the outerloop of the Beltway ... Utilities expected to rise in Montgomery and Prince George's County ... Washington Times names Washington Post investigative reporter John Solomon as its executive editor.
This Day in DCist: In 2007 we thought it was high time to get a proper memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. in the nation's capital, and in 2006 one DCist writer defended wearing an American flag lapel pin.
Photo by allykit16
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Now its "outdoor roll calls"?!
Why don't they take it a step further and run the entire Police Department out of corner kiosks.
Re: the Shaw gang problems -- what about following the NYC practice of greatly increasing stopping and frisking? The upside is that it will net a decent amount of weapons, warrant violators, and put gang members on notice. The downside is that if you're young, black and male, you're very likely to be repeatedly stopped and frisked.
"what about following the NYC practice of greatly increasing stopping and frisking? "
The new mayor in Philly (w/ former DC chief Ramsey) is planning to institute stop and frisk. The reaction from the community is lukewarm at best, but the situation in Philly is more dire than in DC. I imagine the community reaction in DC would be worse (see school closings).
heh, funny to see the outgoing guy at the times saying he's "surprised" to see his paper going to the post to get a new leader. solomon is such a right-leaning hack, i'm surprised that he didn't go to work for the times in the first place.
I'd love to attend an outdoor roll call. Maybe bring some popcorn and hot dogs, and a giant foam #1 finger. Root root root for the home team.
what about following the NYC practice of greatly increasing stopping and frisking?
Uh, we have this thing here called "The Constitution" and another little thing called "The Bill of Rights" that prohibits this kind of shit.
I hope they do the outdoor roll call by way of Go-Go.
"All my guys form the third district, over there!"
"YEAH!"
"All my guys from the sub station, over there!"
"HELL, YEAH!"
What is this Punching Game Busted Tees shirt all about? Google was little help.
And when are they going to make a "Superman that ho" t-shirt?
DCfist, you win the Internets for today. I spit out my orange juice.
"Uh, we have this thing here called "The Constitution" and another little thing called "The Bill of Rights" that prohibits this kind of shit."
Terry v. Ohio.
"...the mayor is looking for a reason to clean house, and when he finds one, he's not afraid to do it."
Unless of course you are the CFO who oversaw $40 million plus in fraud. In that case, it's all good.
Where are her PANTS???
I live on the Logan/Shaw border on O Street (the block where the guy was bashed near BeBar)...lately there has been increased presence of cops walking around, or just sitting in their patrol car observing....I hope there will be more-there are lots of scary folks out there!
Yeah, they can implement greater Terry stops, but under Terry stop-and-frisk still requires a "reasonable suspicion" - and there are plenty of decisions that say it can't simply be based on anti-loitering.
(Tho I'm sure the Roberts Supreme Court would be happy to find an anti-loitering law constitutional, given half a chance.)
Re: the little girl's pants in the photo. The kids are looking at an ice rink so I'm going to guess (hope) she's wearing some sort of ice skating outfit.
Uh, we have this thing here called "The Constitution" and another little thing called "The Bill of Rights" that prohibits this kind of shit.
Y'know, you'd think that, wouldn't you? Except that last year, about 800,000 New Yorkers were stopped and frisked. And that's up from about half-a-million in 2006.
Guess how many of them were white?
If you're not hiding anything illegal, you have nothing to worry about. If you look like a gangsta, you're going to get frisked. If there're no warrants for your arrest and you possess nothing illegal then you have no problem. How exactly is this a bad thing??
Out of all the crime in NYC, what percentage is committed by whites?
What is this Punching Game Busted Tees shirt all about? Google was little help.
The "Punching Game" as I know it is called "Asshole". You have to put your hand like it is on the tshirt somewhere below your waste. If a person looks at you "making the asshole" sign then you get a free punch.
"Out of all the crime in NYC, what percentage is committed by whites?"
"Responding to complaints of profiling, the department noted that while 55.2 percent of those stopped were black, 68.5 percent of reported crimes involved suspects described as black."
Though, the chart says blacks were about 83% of the listed stops (the chart doesn't have other races listed, though, so presumably 83% is higher than the reality.. dunno why NYT ignored everyone else).
The linked chart does have data that shows the hit rate is the same for whites and blacks (at about 11-12%). I'm not sure what conclusion can be drawn from that, though.
If you're not hiding anything illegal, you have nothing to worry about.
Isn't the the standard reason why people shouldn't be worried about government eavesdropping? Who cares if complete strangers are going through your stuff, you're not guilty of anything, so it doesn't matter. And the government never makes a mistake, right? Like mistaking Mr. B. E. Fuckregistering with fugitive felon and convicted kitten strangler Mr. B. F. Fuckregistering.
Please read Kafka's The Trial and write a 250-word essay on why this is happening NOW.
If you look like a gangsta, you're going to get frisked.
See, it's times like these that I wish DC had more thugged-out suburban white kids in poopy pants, do rags, and Tupac/Biggie teeshirts.
"See, it's times like these that I wish DC had more thugged-out suburban white kids in poopy pants, do rags, and Tupac/Biggie teeshirts."
Again, what's the percentage of crimes committed by thugged-out suburban white kids in DC? When the percentage of crime is equally distributed, then I'll have sympathy for the poor people who are getting stopped on the street.
As for the wiretaps, you're exactly right. If you think people are sitting around a bar listening to your conversations about posting on DCist then you're nuts!! If I'm conducting shady business overseas to known terrorists, I'd EXPECT surveillance. Plain and simple: don't do anything wrong and you won't get in trouble.
As for having the wrong initials, don't you think there'd be a little more evidence??
And it's at times like these I wish DC had less folks like "fuckregistering".
It’s also a commonly used gang hand gesture for Bloods....so instead of getting punched you might get shot.
"And it's at times like these I wish [the world] had less folks like "fuckregistering"."
Fixed that for you..
Plain and simple: don't do anything wrong and you won't get in trouble.
And by "do anything wrong" you mean "walk down O Street while being a black male."
Here comes the pedestrian version of the DWB.
just to add to m. erotica's well-said statements, if you look at that graph and do a bit of math, you realize that 88.3% of all whites stopped are not arrested or summoned. This compares to 88.9% of all blacks not arrested or summoned. By following the statistics, the police should be stopping more whites, as they are apparently netting slightly higher results from those stops.
Unless of course you think that any black person who looks like your vision of a "gangsta" should be stopped and search because they are PROBABLY guilty, in which case you are Ron Paul.
I wonder what residents of areas with high gang activity would think about increased stop-and-frisks? If it results in a decrease in crime, I would assume they would support it, even if it meant they and their younger residents would be subject to lots of questioning from the coppers.
I live on the Logan/Shaw border on O Street (the block where the guy was bashed near BeBar)...lately there has been increased presence of cops walking around, or just sitting in their patrol car observing....I hope there will be more-there are lots of scary folks out there!
Loganmo: I live on this very block. Besides the BeBar patron getting his wallet stolen a few months back, what else has happened there in the past couple years? For a pretty much inner-city, urban environment, that's a pretty nice block. Don't know what you think is so scary... your black neighbors who probably make up 10 percent of the block? oooh, come save me mr. officer....
You would be wrong. You are familiar with the whole "Stop Snitchin'" phenomenon, correct? That is part of a greater distrust amongst minorities of the police.
OldPoster: I dunno.. while some of the most ardent supporters of CCTV were residents of the areas where the cameras were installed, a camera is much different from a stop and frisk.
Plain and simple: don't do anything wrong and you won't get in trouble.
[tweeeet] I'm throwing the bullshit flag!!
Spoken like someone who has never been pulled over and snatched out of their car on the way home from work. It's been a while since it happened to me, but not doing anything wrong is no guarantee of not getting harassed by the police.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin
I think Loganmo's referring to activites of the various O Street Crews. They had a truce a few months back. According to some, it didn't take.
Anyway, stop-and-frisk isn't about cops arresting gang members for probable cause. We're not talking about beat cops catching dealers red handed with rock or fencing goods or breaking and entering. This is about cops dealing with "suspicious" activity, whateverthehell that means. We're talking about hillrat and Hillman and me walking through Shaw minding our business and the cops start f***ing with hillrat because he's the "wrong" color or they start harrassing Hillman because he likes men (not wisely, but too well). Because once society says that's okay, sooner or later, they're going to get around to harrassing ME just because I'm a legless monkey in diaper and a Radio Flyer buttwagon.
And if the Holocaust has taught us anything it's that, once they've come for the monkeys in the Radio Flyer Buttwagons, IT WILL BE TOO LATE.
No, it's about being able to take action. Giving the police the ability to do something about situations they know are questionable. Cops know what looks suspicious and what doesn't. They don't go around arbitrarily stopping people because of their color, they stop people who give a few double takes when they see cops coming and double back in the other direction. They stop people who are hanging out in an otherwise empty alley at 4am. They stop people who match the description of a robbery that happened 10 minutes ago a few blocks away. The lack of loitering laws makes enforcement in this city a joke, and anything that opens up the ability to bring criminals to justice is a good thing. Cops that abuse that power should be punished, but the punishment should not be the complete removal of a powerful law enforcement tool that works.
And it's times like these when I wish DC had more people like me. Then maybe the crime rate would go down.
Monkey:
Your scenario of the three of us jauntily skipping through Shaw is intriguing.
Of course the obvious twist in DC is that so many cops are black. So when they mess with a black man for no obvious-to-the-untrained-eye reason, is that racism?
I once had a black cop in DC refer to me sneeringly as 'boy', even though I ain't exactly a spring chicken anymore, calling me out for jaywalking even though he let several large black women jaywalk literally right alongside me. Was that racist profiling?
I don't know that us DC homos get jacked up by cops that much, but I know they often don't take our complaints seriously, especially when it comes to complaints of gay domestic violence, gay bashing, etc.
I'd argue that cops in DC too often treat everybody like shit. But I've also seen enough DC cop behavior to know that in a lot of circumstances it helps if you the resident are black. And it helps not to be a woman. Do I have empricial evidence to back that up? No. Just a decade of living here. And, of course, that delightful little case a few years back where DC cops were nailed using racial (mostly anti-white and anti-Latino) and anti-gay, anti-women slurs on their radios.
I'm of two minds about the anti-loitering laws. First, I hate giving control like that to cops in towns where the cops aren't professional. But, I also think that maybe those insisting on a 'right' to hang out on the streetcorner should perhaps be a little less selfish and agree to hang out at someone's actual house or inside, in the interest of improving the neighborhood.
As for DWB, I'd be very interested to see some legit studies on the subject. For instance, since we now take down race stats on traffic stops, is there anything showing that certain races speed at far higher rates of speed than others? Everybody speeds some, but do some racial groups speed more? Is there enough data now to show that cops do pull over more blacks than others and can the reason (race) be isolated and identified?
As for surveillance, anyone that thinks we aren't at constant risk for invasive surveillance is an idiot. The real question is how we regulate use of all this surveillance.
Plain and simple: don't do anything wrong and you won't get in trouble.
If you stop and frisk 20% of one group, and only 2% of the other, of course you are going to be more likely to find criminals in the 20% group. If that group is only 2% of the population, of course it's going to look wildly disproportionate. Throw in some "thug" imagery, and voila, you've got the perfect recipe for self reinforcing stereotypes.
ya know when you drive out to the 'burbs and you see a bunch of white kids hanging out skateboarding? Well if virtually all the crime in that area is committed by skateboarding white kids, why wouldn't you want to 'stop and frisk' them, or at least keep an eye on them??
This is what I don't get about race issues, especially in an area like DC where the HUGE overwhelming majority of crime is committed by minorities. I'm not saying we should harass ALL minorities, but use common sense. Like when you see a group of five teenaged 'thugs', keep an eye on them! Why? Because TONS of crime is being committed by people who fit that description!!
When certain police abuse their power and pull monkey out of her car for being gay (or whatever she was talking about), then they should be punished and held accountable.
. . . they stop people who give a few double takes when they see cops coming and double back in the other direction.
You mean like someone who may have been harassed previously by the cops and wants to stay away from the police?
I'm not a guy who's afraid of much, but the thing that wakes me up in a cold sweat is the knowledge that cops in this country kill people who fit my description with impunity over nothing and get away with it. The courts have repeatedly said that it is reasonable for a well-trained and armed cop to be so afraid of a Black man that it is essence OK for him to shoot first and ask questions later.
Fuck all that, the less I talk to or deal with the police the better off I am.
"Throw in some "thug" imagery, and voila, you've got the perfect recipe for self reinforcing stereotypes."
Haha so you think crime in DC is committed proportionally equal amongst whites, blacks, and latinos?
Krisa, clearly you've never spent any time with black kids in this city. Kids who make good grades, don't miss school, participate in after school programs and on sports teams, volunteer, etc. but are still stoped by the cops because they might live in the "wrong" building or wear the "wrong" clothes. It happens time and time again to perfectly good kids throughout this city (and I'm sure others) and if you think it doesn't happen than shame on you.
Think about this way (maybe on terms that will help you understand) but if you're driving in your car somewhere and even though you know you are not doing one thing wrong, if a cop comes along beside/behind you, doesn't that make you nervous? Doesn't that make you do a double take?
"but are still stoped by the cops because they might live in the "wrong" building or wear the "wrong" clothes."
You have a valid point about the 'wrong' building.
But I have no sympathy for those that dress a thug lifestyle then complain when they are treated with suspicion.
"Fuck all that, the less I talk to or deal with the police the better off I am."
Then I'm not sure how much right you have to complain when cops don't investigate crimes in your neighborhood or when they refuse to patrol your neighborhood.
Yes, you have a valid fear of cops in many parts of this country. But in DC, where most cops are black and the department and city are mostly run by blacks, I'm just not so sure that you are going to be targeted for killing by DC police officers because you are black.
If there is a rash of robberies done by young men in suits, should cops then have a right to stop every young male in a suit walking the streets of DC? Or only if they do a double take and look suspicious?
Like when you see a group of five teenaged 'thugs', keep an eye on them!
Officer: So Mr. Registering, can you describe the five thugs that assaulted you?
fuckregistering: Well, they were all black males between the ages of 18 and 45.
Officer: Good! That narrows it down. Go on.
fuckregistering: They spoke in a dense urban patois and all had an excellent sense of rhythm. When they clobbered me, it sounded like the guys with the paint buckets at the Metro Station. One of them even had a cowbell.
Officer: [into radio] Send out an APB for The Backyard Band and Rare Essence. Suspects are armed with heavy percussion instruments and hatless. I repeat: HATLESS.
What does thug dress look like?
You're serious? Like porn, I know it when I see it.
One good place to start would be the 'stop snitchin' hoodies. If you wear a damn shirt advocating witness intimidation then you damn well deserve pretty much anything you get.
As for men in suits, if we had a years-long history of young men in suits robbing people, killing people, and generally being shits to their fellow citizens in DC, then, yes, by all means add that description to a list of possible suspect behaviors.
Wow, I started quite a discussion with my two cents worth of pondering. Can I get a DCist T-shirt?
And the discussion on here has echoed my first post: how do you draw the line between harassing people who fit a profile vs. cracking down on crimes committed by people who fit that same profile?
In the NYPD practice, hundreds of thousands of people are being stopped and frisked, yet I don't believe there has been a great public uprising over this practice. I would imagine there has likely been an increase in complaints filed against cops for incidents related to these stops. But since this practice is so widespread and has been going on for a couple of years, my assumption is that the NYPD figures the benefits of the program outweigh the costs.
Would a program like this work in DC? I don't know. Our racial politics are more pronounced in some respects in DC than in NYC. But as others have pointed out, a very sizeable percentage of MPD is black. Can demagogues argue that it's racism when a black cop is stopping a young, black male for questioning? I think a class-based argument would work better for demogoguery (the kid lived in the wrong building, dressed the wrong way, was with the wrong-looking people, etc.).
I don't accept the premise that the "stop snitching" practice would be increased based on great stop and frisk. On the contrary, if cops can't close cases because "nobody saw nothing", then the stop and frisk program takes away the need for a witness, especially if the cop finds drugs or weapons or an outstanding warrant.
I think a program of increased stopping and frisking in areas designated by MPD as crime hot spots is worth a try. Train the MPD cops on acceptable behavior (thereby, hopefully, reducing the possibility of police brutality complaints) and supervise them closely. But give them the chance to see if this practice works and if they can do as well as their NYPD brethren.
"Fuck all that, the less I talk to or deal with the police the better off I am."
Then I'm not sure how much right you have to complain when cops don't investigate crimes in your neighborhood or when they refuse to patrol your neighborhood.
So because of a decades long pattern of police violence I'm afraid of the cops and want to interact with them as little as possible, now I'm no longer entitled to police protection as a taxpaying citizen? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
"One good place to start would be the 'stop snitchin' hoodies. If you wear a damn shirt advocating witness intimidation then you damn well deserve pretty much anything you get."
So now we're taking t-shirt slogans literally? This does not bode well for the tween wearing a "I left my brain in my locker" tshirt. Maybe the cops should shoot her with a zombie ray?
"Can demagogues argue that it's racism when a black cop is stopping a young, black male for questioning?"
I'm pretty sure they can.. unfortunately I'm not recalling the specific case at the moment, though.
Getting back to the basic question of "stop and frisk" - it's basic police procedure, isn't it? I mean, they don't need a special directive to START stopping and frisking people. The time that the NYPD stopped and frisked me, they said they were responding to a reported robbery - isn't that what we want stop-and-frisk to be in DC, too?
Or are we just saying, hey, let's get the cops to randomly stop some dude and feel all down his inseam? Because the comments seem to have muddied the position, and from what the brief graf here says, the MPD in Shaw will be stopping and frisking if there's a reported robbery, but not random "thug" teenagers, whatever afterschool programs they may be on their way home from.
Dixie:
there's a huge difference between a cutesy tshirt and the very real threats meant by the 'stop snitching' movement. Comparing a very real campaign of witness intimidation with cutesy tshirts obviously not meant to be taken seriously doesn't really say much for how seriously you take witness intimidation and people refusing to help police catch violent pricks that prey on others.
Hillrat: its your refusal to work with police as a matter of policy that would mean you don't really deserve much in the way of police protection.
You have a valid point when you say cops have a history of crappy behavior in DC. But how exactly is your blanket policy of not helping or communicating with the police going to help matters?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Just sayin'.
Hillrat: its your refusal to work with police as a matter of policy that would mean you don't really deserve much in the way of police protection.
This has got to be the dumbest thing you've ever said on DCist. I pay my taxes and obey the law, the police are obligated to protect me.
I'm not in a position to refuse to do anything the police ask me to do if I want to continue living. When I get pulled over I say, "Yes officer, no officer, anything you say officer." I am unfailing polite and helpful, but I don't want to have anything to do with the police when I can avoid it. That has nothing to do with the cops investigating car break-ins in my neighborhood or assholes selling dope in the park next to my building.
I hope a cop pulls you over, throws you on the ground, and sticks a gun in your ear sometime; then maybe you'll get a fucking clue about why I avoid the police.
DixieCarter:
If you hang around DC Superior Court, you have a good chance at seeing people walking around with "Stop Snitching" T-shirts. And yes, the person wearing that shirt wants you to take that message literally.
"Can demagogues argue that it's racism when a black cop is stopping a young, black male for questioning?"
Let me clarify something. For the most part I don't believe that the police "target" Black people, the real problem is that the cops know they can get away with more during an interaction with a Black person. Remember that PG county cop that followed the kid from Howard into Fairfax County and killed him? Or what about the judge's kid who was handcuffed in the back of a police car and was shot 14 times? Shit like that just doesn't seem to happen to White people as often as it does to Black people.
Now in both of those cases, not only did the cops in question not go to jail for murder, they actually kept their jobs as police officers. What kind of fool would I be, would any Black man be, if that knowledge didn't color my interactions with the police? The law will not protect my Black ass, I have to protect myself and if that means giving a race-baiting asshole like Al Sharpton (who I hate with a fiery passion that consumes me) a soupcon of support when holding the police's collective feet to the fire, then so be it.
Minorities, gays, and teens have traditionally been given lousy treatment at the hands of the police. I can't really blame folks for wanting to not have anything to do with a class of people who seem to do nothing but harrass them. I'm not saying that a cop will send a half-naked, teenage, drugged, minority rape victims back to their deaths at the hands of their white cannibal assailants, only to be later elected president of the Police Association....
Sorry. I have no idea how to end that sentence.
"Comparing a very real campaign of witness intimidation with cutesy tshirts obviously not meant to be taken seriously doesn't really say much for how seriously you take witness intimidation and people refusing to help police catch violent pricks that prey on others."
Do you really think that teenagers wearing "stop snitchin" tshirts are the ones taking out witnesses mafia style? Really? Are the hippies (some of whom take themselves quite seriously) wearing Che tshirts part of a very real plot to topple our nation? Should we stop them all and frisk them for marijuana?
"Haha so you think crime in DC is committed proportionally equal amongst whites, blacks, and latinos?"
No, I don't think that. My point was simply if one group is exponentially more likely to be scrutinized by the police, then they are more likely to be arrested. If you then treat the number of arrests as rationale for scrutinizing them even more, you are creating a self reinforcing stereotype.
I don't think this is exclusive to race, I'm sure we could make a similar argument with class. One example that comes to mind is GW and the IRS. When they divert more resources to catching income tax evaders, they catch more middle and lower income people. When they divert more resources to catching estate tax evaders, they catch more rich people. It doesn't necessarily show that one group is more "wrong" than the other.
"Are the hippies (some of whom take themselves quite seriously) wearing Che tshirts part of a very real plot to topple our nation? Should we stop them all and frisk them for marijuana?"
Yes. And we should then throw a bucket of cold water on them. And then send them to a re-education camp where they can learn all about the large number of people that Cheh was either directly or indirectly responsible for killing. And then we make them get a haircut and a job.
"they can learn all about the large number of people that Cheh was either directly or indirectly responsible for killing."
No one could have predicted that the phosphate detergent ban would have such disastrous consequences...
@politburo, good catch! hahahaha out loud
Yes, for the record, she was wearing an ice skating outfit, hence the lack of pants :)
Dixie:
Your support for the 'stop snitching' movement says a lot about how you think citizens should act in relation to police.
Clearly not everyone that wears a stop snitching' shirt is murdering witnesses. But they damn sure are willingly giving their support to witness intimidation and the whole idiotic defeatist attitude that citizens should not cooperate with police..... Unless perhaps its a famous football star that is murdered.....apparently the rules change then.
The stop snitching campaign is a well documented public safety problem, in part because of condoning attitudes like yours.
"I am unfailing polite and helpful, but I don't want to have anything to do with the police when I can avoid it."
So you don't say "fuck you" to the police in person (probably a wise decision) but you don't actually help them even in a passive sense, much less a proactive way. You passively sit on your ass and watch crime develop in your neighborhood.
And you are passing this same attitude on to Baby Rat and everyone else you know.
Once you do that you lose any moral claim to demanding that the police come in and combat a situation that you have helped create. The cops still have a legal obligation to protect you, but we both know that don't really mean that much as a practical matter.
Your clarification that cops think they can get away more with blacks vs whites is somewhat valid, in many areas. Again, I'd argue that in DC the situation is often the opposite - many black DC cops feel they can treat whites like shit moreso than blacks, in particular gay whites.
Actually it's more of a class thing, as Dixie s0 aptly pointed out. Simply put, some (but not all) cops will fuck with people they think are powerless. This isn't limited to poor blacks. It also includes poor rural whites, gays, some women, etc.
Your victim mentality and refusal to do your part to combat crime and social decay isn't limited to poor urban blacks. Some of my own tribe (the gays) won't proactively seek help from cops, particularly in domestic violence situations or in smaller towns where reporting a gay bashing is often an exercise in futility. And some poor rural whites have a 'fuck da police' attitude.
However, I must say that the only group I know that have elevated it to an art form - to the point of even designing a clothing line around it - is urban blacks. One exception: hippies, both black and white, of 30 years ago used to sport some swank cop-hatin' gear, but I don't think they actually turned it into a profit enterprise.
But let's talk about your fear of cops and the actual reality of your situation.
You are far more likely to be harmed or killed by someone else in your neighborhood that has been enabled to live a life of crime by the 'don't help the cops' attitude than you are by a cop. And when that happens it'll be partially your own fault, since you won't communicate with the police unless forced, and you apparently pass this philosophy on to others.
When that happens how will you feel about the "I don't talk to the police unless forced" policy. As far as I know you aren't a famous football player (sorry, rugby doesn't count in the US), so your own neighbors aren't going to help the cops investigate any crimes against you or your family, since they adopt the same attitude you do about police assistance.
It'll suck then, I'd imagine. But, hey, at least you'll have your righteous anger to console you.
"I hope a cop pulls you over, throws you on the ground, and sticks a gun in your ear sometime; then maybe you'll get a fucking clue about why I avoid the police."
I've had that happen to me, twice (admittedly, when I was considerably younger). Both times I was as white as could be. Didn't stop it from happening. But I was poor (and one of the times I quite possibly may have been a bit under the influence of something or another).
I've also had a gun put to my scrotum and advised that I'd be one less procreating cracker. That, of course, wasn't done by a cop. It was done by three of DC's finest young adults, raised in an environment where people 'don't talk to cops'. When the cops (three of the four were black) canvassed the public housing complex the wee thugs lived in, every single person there denied even knowing these fine upstanding gentlemen. Apparently even some of their own family members denied knowing them or seeing anything (according to the cops). So, of course, they remained free to fuck with someone else, all courtesy of the 'don't talk to the cops' mantra. All the while living free in public housing that my tax dollars were paying for.
Which situation was more dangerous to me? I'd have to say the gun to the scrotum.
In other words, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Damn, Hillman. Y'alls needs an editor, yo. That's 12-inches of post that coulda been boiled down to a single line. I mean, we all like an uncut 12-incher once in a while, but really.
Monkey:
You have a point. See, I rediscovered the joys of coffee this morning, after a three year hiatus.
Black coffee, I might add....
Oh what?
As for a 12 incher, I assume you are referring to a 12 inch vinyl recording, not some cheap sexual innuendo. Because, as you may know, I like my straighties all sexually repressed and bitter about not getting laid.
Hillman,
What the fuck are you talking about? Show me where I said (or even implied) that I won't help the police if they ask me for assistance. You can't, because I didn't. I avoid interaction with the police when I can; that means I don't want to talk to the cops in a "stop & frisk" situation and I sure as hell don't want to get pulled over.
You passively sit on your ass and watch crime develop in your neighborhood.
You make that statement based on what? Nothing. Listen, when assholes started slinging in the park next to my building you know what I did? I went and talked to them, I (and a couple of my neighbors) asked them to take their shit elsewhere and they did. Not because the cops were sitting on them, but because they knew that people who lived in the area were watching them and weren't afraid of their punk asses.
many black DC cops feel they can treat whites like shit moreso than blacks, in particular gay whites.
When cops start killing gay white guys and keeping their badges then maybe this argument will hold water, but right now it's just some specious bullshit you made up.
you won't communicate with the police unless forced, and you apparently pass this philosophy on to others . . . your own neighbors aren't going to help the cops investigate any crimes against you or your family, since they adopt the same attitude you do about police assistance.
Where are you getting this from, the voices inside your head? If something happened to me or my family there is no doubt in my mind that each and every one of my neighbors would do anything and everything in their power to assist the police and the reverse is true. You have no way of knowing this but, along with some of my neighbors that have kids, BabyRat and I went to the National Night Out this past Summer. Just because I don't go running up to police cars to report someone pissing in an alley when I'm on the other side of town doesn't mean that I won't cooperate with the cops when it's appropriate and I can be reasonably sure I won't get capped while reaching for my wallet.
As for a 12 incher, I assume you are referring to a 12 inch vinyl recording, not some cheap sexual innuendo.
Actually that would be a big ten inch . . . record
"When I get pulled over I say, "Yes officer, no officer, anything you say officer." I am unfailing polite and helpful, but I don't want to have anything to do with the police when I can avoid it."
"Fuck all that, the less I talk to or deal with the police the better off I am."
That pretty much speaks for itself.
You've now qualified your original statements a bit, when called on it.
And I'm happy to hear you have confronted drug-dealing punks in person. That takes balls. Ironically (not that you asked), I have no theoretical problem with actual drug use or sales, if we could take the violence and social rot part of it away.
As for cops killing gays, are you really suggesting that cops have never been violent to gay people? It's very rare when a cop actually kills someone (gay or straight) under questionable circumstance, but I guarantee you that cops have routinely beaten and mistreated gay people. And, of course, there's the blackmail, which still happens quite frequently (most recently in DC it was cops tagging people going to the gay bars in SE and then blackmailing them...)..... to my knowledge there are very few examples of black people being blackmailed for going to a black club.
The biggest problem gays have is cops refusing to help on domestic violence issues or other things the cops think is a 'gay thing.... no big deal'....
Admittedly, this is thankfully becoming less common. At least in big cities and in some more progressive rural areas.
As for your neighbors being willing to snitch if anything happened to you or family, I wouldn't be so sure on that count. Maybe the immediate neighbors that you have developed a rapport with would cooperate, but as for the community at large, that just ain't the case far too much of the time. So you're good to go if the witness happens to know and like you. But you may well be screwed if that ain't the case.
As for cops killing gays, are you really suggesting that cops have never been violent to gay people?
No, but when was the last time a cop followed a gay guy through three jurisdictions and then killed him? I'll tell you when, never. That kind of shit only happens to Black men and that's why I am very hesitant to deal with cops any more than necessary.
You can put up all the red herring arguments you want about gays being blackmailed (which is totally fucked up, but being in the closet and living a lie is a choice) none of that changes the fact that Black men have the unique problem of getting killed by cops for no reason other than being Black and male.
Your example of cops killing black men is so stunningly statistically unlikely that I find it hard to believe it's the heart of your argument.
And your suggestion that black men have the 'unique problem' of being killed by cops for their race really says a lot about your fairly limited world view, sadly. To say categorically absolutely that a cop has never killed anyone but a black man on racial or other hate-based grounds is, well, stupid.
But it does sortof remind me of your past arguments that black people were incapable of racism and/or that such racism, as long as it was black on white, was really no big deal.
To my knowledge it hasn't resulted in an actual killing, but ask many DC latinos (or one of the few remaining DC asians) how black DC cops treat them and if they think it's often race-based. You will get an answer you don't like.
Like it or not, some cops are going to wail on people. It ain't just limited to white cops beating on black men. No one in the entire United Colors of Bennetton ad campaign is safe.
Minor aside, but the idea that being gay and living in the closet is a 'choice' is fairly harsh and not reflective of realistic options for some. Unlike blacks, gays don't have legal protection against being fired or evicted in many places in the US. And, of course, there's the violence that being out brings to many. So depending on where you live and your personal circumstance, living in the closet is not really a choice.
So the crux of your argument is that Black men don't receive worse treatment from the police than other minority groups? That's a fucking joke. I guess all those brothers in prison are there because we're more disposed to criminal behavior. Pfffft!
Rat:
So let's inject some reality here.
In DC, the police are black, the court systems are black, the politicians are mostly black, the social service agencies are black, the juries are black, even most of the prosecutors are black.
And somehow it's a racist conspiracy that so many black men are in jail?
Who exactly conspired here?
Always somebody else's fault, isn't it?
You may have a valid point in rural Alabama. But not in a city run by blacks for the last 40 years.
"So the crux of your argument is that Black men don't receive worse treatment from the police than other minority groups?"
I never said that. In certain parts of the US I'm sure that's true. But shit already, DC is run by blacks, so I find the claim of racist treatment in DC to be just plain stupid.
Even though I'd argue that probably statistically the ones most likely to be treated badly by police are probably the transgendered. I think they get it bad from more types of cops than any other group.
And, like it or not, statistically speaking an awful lot of young black men in DC are in fact engaged in criminal street activity (muggings, breakins, etc). Statistically, more than the community at large. Considerably, noticeably more.
I won't say it's a predisposition. But I would say it's made far more likely by the attitudes frequently exhibited by portions of lower class urban black society.
In short, it's not a race thing. It's a culture thing.
Young black men standing on a streetcorner on H St NE, dressed in thug couture, wearing 'stop snitching' wear and telling people 'fuck da police' are statistically far more likely to actually be engaged in violent or petty street crimes than, say, a group of elderly Jewish women at synagogue.
Saying that isn't racist. It's being realistic. Of course, you could also probably argue that those that commit certain 'white collar crimes' are, well, whiter. I wouldn't be overly surprised to find that to be true. And the shits at Enron ruined more people's lives than many a young black man serving decades in jail ever will. But that's not the issue at hand.
The real question is how do you address the reality that young black men are responsible for a disproportionate amount of street crime without unnecessarily harassing innocent people? Unfortunately, some unwarranted harassment is inevitable. Especially until we become the totally-monitored society that we probably will inevitably become.
But that's more the fault of the thug culture and it's participants than it is the fault of the police. So if you are angry, blame the selfish shits that have given young black men such a reputation. That would be other young black men (although, honestly, the some parts of the media..... particularly local news.... bear some blame here as well).
And it's the fault of the thug and entitlement culture apologists, the black 'activists' that confuse thuggery, entitlement and victim mentality with 'blackness', and the 'fuck da police' attitude that many adopt as a blanket policy.
That's your real enemy and poses a FAR greater danger to you and Baby Rat than the police ever will.
So far you've done little to refute that basic premise.
Hillman - You know what all of your unhinged ranting proves? That you don't understand a thing that's outside of your life experience. You're so concerned with proving how "correct" and "smart" you are that you DON'T FUCKING LISTEN!
God almighty could start posting on DCist and tell you what the universal truth is and your response would be a 15 inch rant contradicting him and included a few sentences about how the GLBT community is the most oppressed group in the universe.
Anybody ever been trapped in a doctor's office or a bus and been forced to listen to an elderly couple argue about s**t?
Can't we just agree that old white billionaires are the most oppressed minority group EVAR and let it go?
Rat:
That's not really a substantive rebuttal. But, then, you are mounting a losing argument - based on emotion rather than fact and common sense.
Unhinged? Maybe. Too much time on my hands? Probably. Wrong? No.
Monkey: I'll agree this one's gotten pretty tedious, even for me, and I'm writing most of it. But I just can't let bullshit victim mentality / bogus racism-is-the-reason-for-everything claims slide by unchallenged, in large part because the city I live in has been damn near ruined by this very sort of crap.
You're right about the old white billionaires. Nobody thinks about the pain they feel everyday, knowing the secretly control pretty much everything but have to pretend in public that they don't. The stress that causes must be truly horrendous.
But not to worry. In 20 years it'll be old Chinese billionaires.
Yes, Hillman, yes, we've heard you. Many, many times. The thing is, you seem to be jumping at straws. I think this whole thing started when you sort of jumped to a conclusion/combined a knee jerk reaction to DixieCarter's fashion advice with a completely different statement made by hillrat and then blended it together into an out-of-proportion smoothly like a JambaJuice from Hell. I get you're impressions about crime and your experiences with it. This is all shadows however. First of all, there is now proposed stopping and frisking! Second of all, I really wanted to be poster #80. Woohoo!