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Well, that's a bit embarassing for HolderFollow

#52 Mar 19 2015 at 10:09 AM Rating: Good
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Well duh. The only way a Republican could possibly be corrupt is if he were gay.
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#53 Mar 20 2015 at 6:19 PM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
The point (which I've been trying to convey) is that they unfairly target poor neighborhoods (that are predominately black) to make money while they avoid white neighborhoods (which statistically use the same amount of or more drugs) because of the financial power and clout to fight back.


I disagree. They fairly target high crime neighborhoods, but because those neighborhoods have a disproportionately higher percentage of black people living in them, said targeting is condemned on the basis of the resulting disparate impact. If you really just want to argue that it's unfair to target low income high crime neighborhoods for things like drug stings and whatnot, then make that argument *without* mentioning race. If it's wrong to target based on income and crime rate in an area, then it's wrong regardless of the skin colors of those living there. But the argument he was making is that this is wrong *because* it disproportionately affects blacks. I happen to think that's a poor argument and it leads to the assumption that racial bias is the cause of the disproportionate outcomes.

Quote:
Whether or not the particular police officer doing the arrest is racist and did it because the individual was black is irrelevant if the end result is only black people.


It's hugely relevant if you're arguing that the effect is caused by racial bias. Like, say, exactly what the DoJ report was claiming.

Quote:
We have laws against stuff like that. The discrimination does not have to be intentional to be considered unjust.


All discrimination is intentional. I'm assuming you meant that the disparate impact does not have to be the intent for it to be unjust, which is just plain wrong. Not just wrong, but countered by nearly every court ruling on the subject. Disparate impact regulations are already questionable due to the fact that many times, in order to avoid a disparate impact, the person or organization is forced to engage in disparate treatment, which is an actual violation of the civil rights act and the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.

Quote:
Do you support the disparate impact theory in anti-discrimination laws?


I'm not sure what you mean by "support the theory". Are you asking me if disparate impact exists? Of course it does. Are you asking me if I agree with the theory that there is social value in reducing disparate impact? Sure. My issue is with how that is done. Just passing a law requiring that blacks not be arrested at a rate greater than whites is a pretty darn stupid way to address the disparate impact of our criminal justice system on blacks.

I prefer for us to look at the underlying causes of that disparate impact and work to change them where practical. And in this case, the clear issue is poverty, not police bias. While changing the poverty stats for blacks in the US is "hard", doing so actually addresses the problem in a fair way that does not violate other important principles like equal protection. Meanwhile, simply concluding that the existence of a disparate impact must be the result of police bias is wholly wrong, leads people to actions that are violent and likely to perpetuate the actual cause of the problem *and* will never fix the problem.

Quote:
Is it wrong not to make proper arrests in a neighborhood out of fear of financial retaliation?


If that's the sole reason *and* all the arrests are proper, yes. But that's the language from the guy in the video. We have to take his word that this was the sole reason (which may be true, but may also not be). Also, you're the one inserting "proper arrests" into the mix. Let's assume we agree that the police make mistakes some percentage of the time. Fair or not, making a mistake and arresting the wrong guy who can't afford to sue the department will have less negative effect on a police department than arresting the wrong guy who can. Again, we can say that's unfair against people living in poor neighborhoods, but the issue I have is the need to tie that into race. As though it's only wrong to disproportionately target police stings in poor neighborhoods because those neighborhoods are disproportionately black. If it's wrong, it should be wrong regardless of who lives there. My issue is with the race focus of the argument because it isn't actually helpful to address either the core issue with blacks being disproportionately poor *or* the issue with people in poor neighborhoods being disproportionately targeted by police. It is terrifically helpful at fanning the flames of racial resentment though, and thus serves a powerful political purpose.

I'll also point out that there's a bit of bait and switch here. I don't agree that the real reason was fear of lawsuits (although that might certainly be one factor of many, but not a major factor). The bigger one would be cost versus results. He was talking about drug sweeps. So while it may be true that people in the suburbs are just as likely to use drugs as people in poor neighborhoods (a questionable stat since the only source I could find for this conflated "drug and alcohol use", which is not quite the same thing), the usage patterns are different. You are far less likely to find people standing on a street corner selling drugs to people driving by in cars in the burbs. Thus, the kind of sweeps that the guy in the video was talking about would be far less productive in the higher rent areas. Most drug deals in the burbs happen inside people's homes, not on the streets. Dealers are usually someone the buyer knows personally, who himself bought his stuff from someone he knew, and they tend to come over to the other persons house to buy/sell. So you'd have to be rushing into a lot more homes, where you might find two or three people engaged in a small drug deal versus one guy standing on the street with a large amount on him, or a single "drug house" with large quantities of both drugs and people which you'd find in a poorer neighborhood.

Which I suppose might also lead to a difference in terms of legal push back. Again though, it's an apples to apples comparison. They do drugs sweeps in the neighborhoods where you have obvious drug dealers standing on corners, or dealing right out of a home. It's a lot harder to do them in areas where everything is done behind closed doors and it's nearly impossible to know if a given home has any given quantity of drugs in it.


So no, I don't buy the guys argument.

Edited, Mar 20th 2015 5:21pm by gbaji
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#54 Mar 20 2015 at 7:25 PM Rating: Default
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Gbaji wrote:

I disagree. They fairly target high crime neighborhoods
You say crime in general, but the focus is on contraband. Are you saying that unless a city is full of violence, then the police shouldn't check for other violations, e.g, traffic violations, drugs, theft, etc?

Gbaji wrote:
because those neighborhoods have a disproportionately higher percentage of black people living in them, said targeting is condemned on the basis of the resulting disparate impact. If you really just want to argue that it's unfair to target low income high crime neighborhoods for things like drug stings and whatnot, then make that argument *without* mentioning race. If it's wrong to target based on income and crime rate in an area, then it's wrong regardless of the skin colors of those living there. But the argument he was making is that this is wrong *because* it disproportionately affects blacks. I happen to think that's a poor argument and it leads to the assumption that racial bias is the cause of the disproportionate outcomes.


Gbaji wrote:
It's hugely relevant if you're arguing that the effect is caused by racial bias. Like, say, exactly what the DoJ report was claiming.


Gaji wrote:

All discrimination is intentional. I'm assuming you meant that the disparate impact does not have to be the intent for it to be unjust, which is just plain wrong. Not just wrong, but countered by nearly every court ruling on the subject. Disparate impact regulations are already questionable due to the fact that many times, in order to avoid a disparate impact, the person or organization is forced to engage in disparate treatment, which is an actual violation of the civil rights act and the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.


Gbaji wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "support the theory". Are you asking me if disparate impact exists? Of course it does. Are you asking me if I agree with the theory that there is social value in reducing disparate impact? Sure. My issue is with how that is done.


Gbaji wrote:
If that's the sole reason *and* all the arrests are proper, yes. But that's the language from the guy in the video. We have to take his word that this was the sole reason (which may be true, but may also not be). Also, you're the one inserting "proper arrests" into the mix. Let's assume we agree that the police make mistakes some percentage of the time. Fair or not, making a mistake and arresting the wrong guy who can't afford to sue the department will have less negative effect on a police department than arresting the wrong guy who can. Again, we can say that's unfair against people living in poor neighborhoods, but the issue I have is the need to tie that into race. As though it's only wrong to disproportionately target police stings in poor neighborhoods because those neighborhoods are disproportionately black. If it's wrong, it should be wrong regardless of who lives there. My issue is with the race focus of the argument because it isn't actually helpful to address either the core issue with blacks being disproportionately poor *or* the issue with people in poor neighborhoods being disproportionately targeted by police. It is terrifically helpful at fanning the flames of racial resentment though, and thus serves a powerful political purpose.

I'll also point out that there's a bit of bait and switch here. I don't agree that the real reason was fear of lawsuits (although that might certainly be one factor of many, but not a major factor). The bigger one would be cost versus results. He was talking about drug sweeps. So while it may be true that people in the suburbs are just as likely to use drugs as people in poor neighborhoods (a questionable stat since the only source I could find for this conflated "drug and alcohol use", which is not quite the same thing), the usage patterns are different. You are far less likely to find people standing on a street corner selling drugs to people driving by in cars in the burbs. Thus, the kind of sweeps that the guy in the video was talking about would be far less productive in the higher rent areas. Most drug deals in the burbs happen inside people's homes, not on the streets. Dealers are usually someone the buyer knows personally, who himself bought his stuff from someone he knew, and they tend to come over to the other persons house to buy/sell. So you'd have to be rushing into a lot more homes, where you might find two or three people engaged in a small drug deal versus one guy standing on the street with a large amount on him, or a single "drug house" with large quantities of both drugs and people which you'd find in a poorer neighborhood.

Which I suppose might also lead to a difference in terms of legal push back. Again though, it's an apples to apples comparison. They do drugs sweeps in the neighborhoods where you have obvious drug dealers standing on corners, or dealing right out of a home. It's a lot harder to do them in areas where everything is done behind closed doors and it's nearly impossible to know if a given home has any given quantity of drugs in it.

Do you or do you not think there was malice done by the police? Please be advised of the report that you claimed have read before answering.

Gbaji wrote:
Just passing a law requiring that blacks not be arrested at a rate greater than whites is a pretty darn stupid way to address the disparate impact of our criminal justice system on blacks.
Holy crap! How is it, after all of this discussion your interpretation is this nonsense? I've said it before and I'll say it again, NO ONE IS MAKING THAT ARGUMENT. Stop with the straw man. People are wanting fairness. If the statistics show that the people that are being targeted are less likely to have contraband, then you need to change your targeting tactics.

Gbaji wrote:
I prefer for us to look at the underlying causes of that disparate impact and work to change them where practical. And in this case, the clear issue is poverty, not police bias. While changing the poverty stats for blacks in the US is "hard", doing so actually addresses the problem in a fair way that does not violate other important principles like equal protection. Meanwhile, simply concluding that the existence of a disparate impact must be the result of police bias is wholly wrong, leads people to actions that are violent and likely to perpetuate the actual cause of the problem *and* will never fix the problem.
Read above. Poverty does not increase crime. And you wonder why the poor doesn't like Republicans. Drug Lords and gang leaders are not poor. Let me try this again. If twice the contraband was found on demographic x than demographic y, but demographic y was 10 times more likely to be searched, do you not see anything wrong with this? Say yes so I can go back to countering your previous post...



#55 Mar 20 2015 at 9:04 PM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
You say crime in general, but the focus is on contraband.


No. You're mixing up cases. My post was in response to the video about the guy saying that drug sweeps were focused on poor neighborhoods instead of wealthier ones, with the correlation that "poor==black" and "wealthy==white".

Quote:
Are you saying that unless a city is full of violence, then the police shouldn't check for other violations, e.g, traffic violations, drugs, theft, etc?


No. I'm saying that poor neighborhoods are much better targets for drug sweeps than the suburbs. I thought I gave a pretty detailed explanation as to why.


But, for the sake of fairness, I'll address the contraband issue (again). There are a number of possible explanations. The first is simply statistical. There's going to be more police presence per person in a high crime area versus low, thus more stops per person even if every cop on patrol does the same number of stops per shift. Thus, a higher rate per persons of a search that results in no contraband, even if the "contraband found per search" was exactly the same.

As to why the "contraband found per search" rate might be higher in a lower crime neighborhood? Again, there could be a number of possible explanations. The easiest here is to note that the stats in the report don't mention whether other crimes were being committed at the time of the searches. As you point out, if one has already stopped a person for one reason, it seems reasonable at that point to decide to search his person/car for contraband. So if I see someone assault someone else, and I arrest that person, I'm also going to search him, right? If I find no contraband, it's going to show up as a search that resulted in no contraband in the stats. But I still arrested him for assault. In a low crime area, I'm more likely to be stopping someone for something less serious (like traffic stops). Which means I'm only going to search that person if I have a strong suspicion that there's contraband as opposed to searching it because I'm arresting the person for some other reason anyway. Which will account for a higher percentage of successful searches, but does *not* support the idea that this results from police bias.

Another factor is something I call "criminal camouflage". It's something that tends to happen more in high crime areas than low crime. People tend to act as though they are breaking the law even when they are not. The classic scenario is a cop rolling up on a couple dozen people hanging out in a park. A small number of them are dealing/using drugs, the rest are just hanging out and not breaking the law at all. But they all scatter as soon as they see the cop. This is camouflage in that it make it very hard for the cops to figure out who is actually breaking the law plus it increases the odds of the cops chasing someone who hasn't done anything wrong. Usually prompting the stereotypical "I didn't do nothing!" followed by "then why did you run?" conversation. And yeah, this frustrates the heck out of cops because it means that the citizens of the area are effectively helping to conceal the criminals in their own neighborhoods from the law. Intentional or not, it makes the area worse for those very citizens as a result.

And this also results in increased searches that reveal nothing. I could probably list several more factors if you want. Point being that you can't conclude police bias from the stats.

Quote:
Do you or do you not think there was malice done by the police? Please be advised of the report that you claimed have read before answering.


First off "malice" is not something that is done. It's a reason for doing something. If you do something out of malice, it's out of a desire to do evil/harm. And no, I don't think than when the cops pull people over and search their cars, they are doing so out of malice. I'm not precluding the possibility of any one cop being an evil guy who likes to hurt people, of course, but I don't buy that "the police" as a group are doing their jobs maliciously. They are doing their jobs. This requires that they pull people over and search them. It requires that they try to arrest that guy selling drugs on the corner. It requires that they deal with the drunk guy wandering down the street, or the group of gang bangers harassing people. To label their actions as malice is absurd.

Malice is not just "doing things people don't like, or that harms them". It's the intent behind the act. I've known a number of cops, and none of them want to get into a fight with someone, or pull their guns, or shoot someone. Most of them would love to not have to arrest anyone on a shift. But they want that to happen because the people they encounter aren't breaking the law, not because they're worried that someone will second guess their motives for acting based in their skin color in relation to the other person.

Quote:
Gbaji wrote:
Just passing a law requiring that blacks not be arrested at a rate greater than whites is a pretty darn stupid way to address the disparate impact of our criminal justice system on blacks.
Holy crap! How is it, after all of this discussion your interpretation is this nonsense? I've said it before and I'll say it again, NO ONE IS MAKING THAT ARGUMENT. Stop with the straw man. People are wanting fairness. If the statistics show that the people that are being targeted are less likely to have contraband, then you need to change your targeting tactics.


Again, I made that post in response to the drug sweeps, not the contraband stats. You police most where there's the most crime. This will always affect other secondary stats related to increased police presence. You can't *not* have that effect unless you actively choose to focus your police efforts on the areas with less crime. Which seems pretty counter productive.


Quote:
Read above. Poverty does not increase crime.


I did not say that poverty increases (or causes) crime. I said that areas with high poverty tend to also have high crime. There is a correlation between them. And cops have to police most where crime is highest. Thus, they will also police most where poverty is the highest. This means that if one racial group is disproportionately poor, they are going to be disproportionately affected by police actions.

Quote:
And you wonder why the poor doesn't like Republicans. Drug Lords and gang leaders are not poor.


Outside of the Hollywood version of drug lords living in penthouses uptown, most drug lords and gang leaders in the real world live in poor neighborhoods. More importantly, the work they do most interacts with poor neighborhoods. The gang members they use to do their dirty work are poor and live in poor neighborhoods. The people they prey on are poor and live in poor neighborhoods. They mix and warehouse their drugs in poor neighborhoods. They control turf in poor neighborhoods. They recruit new members in poor neighborhoods. They distribute their drugs out of houses in poor neighborhoods. They commit a whole range of crime, mostly in poor neighborhoods.

That's why the police tend to operate drug sweeps in poor neighborhoods. While I'm sure they could capture Rod and his friend Brad doing a couple lines on the glass dining room table in their parents house in the burbs, if they want to confiscate a large quantity of drugs, they're going to go to the rundown abandoned apartment building in the projects where the local gang is cutting the stuff up prior to distribution. Arguing that they should bash 500 doors down in the burbs to collect a half pound of coke, with no single person having more than a misdemeanor amount on them rather than go to the source because the source happens to be in a poor neighborhood where there happen to be more black people is ridiculous.


Quote:
Let me try this again. If twice the contraband was found on demographic x than demographic y, but demographic y was 10 times more likely to be searched, do you not see anything wrong with this? Say yes so I can go back to countering your previous post...


That's not what the stats said though. And I'm not even talking about you exaggerating the numbers (26% more likely is not remotely close to 10 times more likely). Not all contraband is equal. Counting up cases where contraband was found does not tell us what kind, or how much, during any particular search. If I'm 26% less likely to find contraband in a car I search in area A, but the contraband is more likely to be a pound of meth versus an ounce of pot, then there's nothing wrong there at all. The problem with broad stats like the ones in the report, is that they can't account for other variables. That particular stat talks about the reasons for a stop being initiated, but does not reflect (as I touched on earlier, but in a more broad way) other aspects that occur after the stop occurs. I may pull two people over for running a stop sign (identical reason for initiating the stop). If one of them has warrants for his arrest, I may arrest him. And whilst doing that, I'm going to search his car. Which means I'm less likely to find contraband in his car than the other guy, who has no warrants or other reason for arrest, but I smell pot coming from inside and decide to search his car.


When assessing stats like that, you have to look not just at what conditions are stated, but what are not stated. The report makes a point of saying that "even after controlling for non-race based variables such as the reason the vehicle stop was initiated", but doesn't make mention of other factors which might result in a search. Given the earlier stat about blacks making up 93% of arrests, but only 67% of the population, we can reasonably conclude that everything else being equal a black motorist is more likely to be arrested after a traffic stop than a white motorist in Ferguson. Now, we can certainly argue that *this* could represent bias (although I've already given several arguments as to why we can't assume that given the stats we have), but searches tend to happen automatically in conjunction with arrests. Ergo, more searches even if the arrest has nothing to do with contraband. Ergo, more searches that will not turn up contraband.


The broader point I'm trying to make here is that the old adage about "lies, damn lies, and statistics" really seems to hold true for the DoJ report. They've cherry picked stats in such a way as to support a narrative, but the stats themselves aren't sufficient to prove that narrative. You have to ask what the stats don't tell us and what factors aren't explicitly defined within the data itself. It's really easy to make something appear to be something it's not by playing with stats. And I really think that's what's going on here.
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#56 Mar 21 2015 at 5:52 AM Rating: Default
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Gbaji wrote:
No. You're mixing up cases. My post was in response to the video about the guy saying that drug sweeps were focused on poor neighborhoods instead of wealthier ones, with the correlation that "poor==black" and "wealthy==white".
The question that the man asked in the video was in reference to contraband, not crime in general. Ironic how you jump on the correlation between poor and crime while acknowledging and denying the correlation between ethnic minorities and poverty in the same argument.

So, you can throw out your "high crime neighborhood" claim, because we are talking about contraband. The point of stop and frisk is to STOP crime before it happens. That's why your speeding car analogy (that I've been trying to get to for awhile) fails, because if the car is speeding, then it already broke the law. Stopping and frisking then becomes part of the process. No one is complaining about searching a drug dealer or gang banger. The problem (which you keep avoiding) is stopping and frisking innocent people based on a criteria that is statistically lower to produce any contraband. 4th amendment and all.

Gbaji wrote:

No. I'm saying that poor neighborhoods are much better targets for drug sweeps than the suburbs. I thought I gave a pretty detailed explanation as to why.
But, for the sake of fairness, I'll address the contraband issue (again). There are a number of possible explanations. The first is simply statistical. There's going to be more police presence per person in a high crime area versus low, thus more stops per person even if every cop on patrol does the same number of stops per shift. Thus, a higher rate per persons of a search that results in no contraband, even if the "contraband found per search" was exactly the same.

As to why the "contraband found per search" rate might be higher in a lower crime neighborhood? Again, there could be a number of possible explanations. The easiest here is to note that the stats in the report don't mention whether other crimes were being committed at the time of the searches. As you point out, if one has already stopped a person for one reason, it seems reasonable at that point to decide to search his person/car for contraband. So if I see someone assault someone else, and I arrest that person, I'm also going to search him, right? If I find no contraband, it's going to show up as a search that resulted in no contraband in the stats. But I still arrested him for assault. In a low crime area, I'm more likely to be stopping someone for something less serious (like traffic stops). Which means I'm only going to search that person if I have a strong suspicion that there's contraband as opposed to searching it because I'm arresting the person for some other reason anyway. Which will account for a higher percentage of successful searches, but does *not* support the idea that this results from police bias.

Another factor is something I call "criminal camouflage". It's something that tends to happen more in high crime areas than low crime. People tend to act as though they are breaking the law even when they are not. The classic scenario is a cop rolling up on a couple dozen people hanging out in a park. A small number of them are dealing/using drugs, the rest are just hanging out and not breaking the law at all. But they all scatter as soon as they see the cop. This is camouflage in that it make it very hard for the cops to figure out who is actually breaking the law plus it increases the odds of the cops chasing someone who hasn't done anything wrong. Usually prompting the stereotypical "I didn't do nothing!" followed by "then why did you run?" conversation. And yeah, this frustrates the heck out of cops because it means that the citizens of the area are effectively helping to conceal the criminals in their own neighborhoods from the law. Intentional or not, it makes the area worse for those very citizens as a result.

And this also results in increased searches that reveal nothing. I could probably list several more factors if you want. Point being that you can't conclude police bias from the stats.


You're right in the fact that there could be a number of possibilities. My question is why is it that a flawed criteria search system can't be one of them? At this point it sounds like you just don't want it to be, not that there is any evidence to the contrary.

Gbaji wrote:
First off "malice" is not something that is done. It's a reason for doing something. If you do something out of malice, it's out of a desire to do evil/harm. And no, I don't think than when the cops pull people over and search their cars, they are doing so out of malice. I'm not precluding the possibility of any one cop being an evil guy who likes to hurt people, of course, but I don't buy that "the police" as a group are doing their jobs maliciously. They are doing their jobs. This requires that they pull people over and search them. It requires that they try to arrest that guy selling drugs on the corner. It requires that they deal with the drunk guy wandering down the street, or the group of gang bangers harassing people. To label their actions as malice is absurd.

Let me rephrase the question. Do you or do you not believe that there were multiple wrong doings by the police department in how they interact with the population worthy of attention? Reference the report that you have read. If the report is bogus, then you can't use the same report to support your argument.

Gbaji wrote:
Malice is not just "doing things people don't like, or that harms them". It's the intent behind the act. I've known a number of cops, and none of them want to get into a fight with someone, or pull their guns, or shoot someone. Most of them would love to not have to arrest anyone on a shift. But they want that to happen because the people they encounter aren't breaking the law, not because they're worried that someone will second guess their motives for acting based in their skin color in relation to the other person.
As a black man, I have honestly never met another black person that I have known who wanted to shoot another person or join a gang. That doesn't contradict the fact that there aren't plenty of them who do.
#57 Mar 21 2015 at 6:34 AM Rating: Good
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4th amendment doesn't apply to who haven't broken the law, only to land owners breaking the law for decades that don't want the government enforcing those laws. Then an army of anti-government types will come out to support their cause.
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#58 Mar 23 2015 at 7:35 AM Rating: Good
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Plenty of women shields to hide behind, though.
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#59 Mar 23 2015 at 10:16 AM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
The question that the man asked in the video was in reference to contraband, not crime in general.


He was talking about drug sweeps. While that does involve contraband, it's not the same as searching a car you pulled over for a traffic stop (or stop and frisk for that matter), and I'm not sure why you keep trying to conflate the two. You posted the video. I responded to that video. Stop trying to counter my response to the video with a statement that seems to be referring to stats from the DoJ report. Those are two separate issues.

Quote:
Ironic how you jump on the correlation between poor and crime while acknowledging and denying the correlation between ethnic minorities and poverty in the same argument.


Huh? My primary argument has been that the racial crime and arrest stats are driven by the correlation between race and poverty. I've hardly denied it. It's the core component to my argument. I'm not sure how you managed to miss this.

Quote:
So, you can throw out your "high crime neighborhood" claim, because we are talking about contraband.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. How does "talking about contraband" counter my point that the racial crime stats are driven by the racial poverty stats? You're not making any sense at all.

Quote:
The point of stop and frisk is to STOP crime before it happens. That's why your speeding car analogy (that I've been trying to get to for awhile) fails, because if the car is speeding, then it already broke the law. Stopping and frisking then becomes part of the process. No one is complaining about searching a drug dealer or gang banger. The problem (which you keep avoiding) is stopping and frisking innocent people based on a criteria that is statistically lower to produce any contraband. 4th amendment and all.


Huh? Why are you introducing yet another element to the discussion? How about you stick to the points at hand instead of spinning off on a tangent? So I can't talk about the correlation between crime, poverty, and race because we're "talking about contraband", but now you're changing the subject to "stop and frisk"? When did that even enter the conversation?

Quote:
You're right in the fact that there could be a number of possibilities. My question is why is it that a flawed criteria search system can't be one of them? At this point it sounds like you just don't want it to be, not that there is any evidence to the contrary.


If the criteria for searching is flawed, then make that case. My issue is that you're looking just at the resulting stats, seeing that blacks are being searched, arrested, detained, etc, more often than whites and concluding that the whole thing must be unfair. But that ignores the fact that a completely "fair" search criteria will still result in a higher rate of black searches and incarcerations as long as the correlations between race, poverty, and crime exist as I've described. The only real solution is to fix the correlation between race and poverty. Any other solution requires that the police basically ignore criminal behavior in order to make the crime stats "equal" based on race. Which is insane.

Quote:
Let me rephrase the question. Do you or do you not believe that there were multiple wrong doings by the police department in how they interact with the population worthy of attention? Reference the report that you have read. If the report is bogus, then you can't use the same report to support your argument.


Sure. I said at the onset that the report shows multiple poor actions by police. I even mentioned that some of them are things I've experienced myself. My point is that the report does not support the conclusion that these wrong actions were targeted racially. That's what is "bogus" about the report. You do understand that it's quite possible for a cop to be overly aggressive with someone he encounters on patrol without that action being racial motivated, right? Again, my issue is with the assumption that if a cop does something unfair to a black person that it *must* be an example of racial discrimination. I find that to be a ridiculous assumption. How about we just conclude that cops can be jerks sometimes? They abuse their power sometimes? They get frustrated, or jump to the wrong conclusion. It happens. But when it happens to me (and it's happened many times), I don't assume it's because of my race. That's the difference.

Quote:
As a black man, I have honestly never met another black person that I have known who wanted to shoot another person or join a gang. That doesn't contradict the fact that there aren't plenty of them who do.


I don't think you can draw a comparison between a cop forced to shoot someone who assaults him (like in the Brown case that started this discussion) and joining a gang. There's a difference between "I didn't want to join that gang, or rob that liquor store, but then I decided to do it anyway", and "I didn't want to shoot that guy, but he kept charging at me and I had no choice". I'm honestly not even sure what kind of point you're trying to make here.

Edited, Mar 23rd 2015 9:20am by gbaji
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#60 Mar 23 2015 at 12:15 PM Rating: Default
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Gbaji wrote:
He was talking about drug sweeps. While that does involve contraband, it's not the same as searching a car you pulled over for a traffic stop (or stop and frisk for that matter), and I'm not sure why you keep trying to conflate the two. You posted the video. I responded to that video. Stop trying to counter my response to the video with a statement that seems to be referring to stats from the DoJ report. Those are two separate issues.
The video was in response to you explaining how statistics in Ferguson are created. You're absolutely right that it's not the same as searching your car after a traffic stop. I keep telling you that isn't what I'm talking about, that I'm not referring to people who have potentially committed a crime. Stop and frisk is completely different and last time I checked, drugs are contraband.

Gbaji wrote:

Huh? My primary argument has been that the racial crime and arrest stats are driven by the correlation between race and poverty. I've hardly denied it. It's the core component to my argument. I'm not sure how you managed to miss this.
You deny it when you argue against saying "urban" and "black" neighborhoods. If there is such a strong correlation between black neighborhoods and poverty, then call it what it is. You are wanting to segregate the two to remove any racial aspect to the argument, but that's like being against using the term "women" for discrimination against people with large breast because technically men can have big breast as well.

Gbaji wrote:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. How does "talking about contraband" counter my point that the racial crime stats are driven by the racial poverty stats? You're not making any sense at all.
The outrage isn't the statistics of criminals being searched. Your argument is that the stats are high because crime is high. However, stop and frisk is an attempt to PREVENT crime before it happens. The complaint is that the vast majority of those people (of any race) were searched with no contraband found or evidence to suggest a criminal activity. The further outrage is that most of those people searched were black and hispanic even though most of the contraband found were on whites. For a person who is against labeling communities as "black" or "white", you should also know that these statistics aren't segregated by communities but is an aggregation of everyone. Point being, that in most cities (not Ferguson, but in NYC) you could stop and frisk 90% of every black American of any age and that would be 50% of the white population. So for more white people to produce contraband, but make up less than 10% of searches even though they are double of any other population is a problem.

Gbaji wrote:
If the criteria for searching is flawed, then make that case. My issue is that you're looking just at the resulting stats, seeing that blacks are being searched, arrested, detained, etc, more often than whites and concluding that the whole thing must be unfair. But that ignores the fact that a completely "fair" search criteria will still result in a higher rate of black searches and incarcerations as long as the correlations between race, poverty, and crime exist as I've described. The only real solution is to fix the correlation between race and poverty. Any other solution requires that the police basically ignore criminal behavior in order to make the crime stats "equal" based on race. Which is insane.
I've been "making that case" from the start. You're just too blinded by your straw man argument, that even after I pointed it out to you several times in this thread alone, you are still claiming that nonsense. Explain to me how a completely "fair" search will result in a higher search rate if the majority of the people being searched are innocent? Remember, that's the point of the outrage. No one cares about drug dealers and gang bangers being stopped and frisked and going to jail. That's what we want to happen.

Gbaji wrote:

Sure. I said at the onset that the report shows multiple poor actions by police. I even mentioned that some of them are things I've experienced myself. My point is that the report does not support the conclusion that these wrong actions were targeted racially. That's what is "bogus" about the report. You do understand that it's quite possible for a cop to be overly aggressive with someone he encounters on patrol without that action being racial motivated, right? Again, my issue is with the assumption that if a cop does something unfair to a black person that it *must* be an example of racial discrimination. I find that to be a ridiculous assumption. How about we just conclude that cops can be jerks sometimes? They abuse their power sometimes? They get frustrated, or jump to the wrong conclusion. It happens. But when it happens to me (and it's happened many times), I don't assume it's because of my race. That's the difference.
I completely understand and I never make that assumption. My concern is that you're doing exactly what you're complaining about. Unless you have proof that it weren't racially motivated (ignoring the racist emails), then you can't say that wasn't just like others can't say that it was. You do understand that it is quite possible to counter the argument that it was racially motivated without denying the fact that it might be, but we just don't know.

Gbaji wrote:

I don't think you can draw a comparison between a cop forced to shoot someone who assaults him (like in the Brown case that started this discussion) and joining a gang. There's a difference between "I didn't want to join that gang, or rob that liquor store, but then I decided to do it anyway", and "I didn't want to shoot that guy, but he kept charging at me and I had no choice". I'm honestly not even sure what kind of point you're trying to make here.
I was ridiculing your claim that cops want to do the right thing because your cop friends are good. The fact that every cop you know is good doesn't mean cops aren't doing these wrong things.
#61 Mar 25 2015 at 7:31 PM Rating: Decent
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Ok. Not going to go point for point, because it's become obvious to me that you are still not getting the primary point I've been trying to make.

The targeting is not at the people, but the area. The drug sweeps are conducted in an area. Stop and frisk is conducted in an area. Higher police presence is based on the area. My point is that areas with high crime are going to be targeted for such things because it makes sense to do so in the areas with the highest overall crime rates. Do you understand this?

Where the racial component comes in is that black people are disproportionately likely to be poor. And poor neighborhoods tend to also be high crime neighborhoods. Therefore, all of the things mentioned above will happen more often to black people and in "black neighborhoods" than to white people and "white neighborhoods". But that does not mean that the police actions are targeted at black people.

The cause of the disparate statistics relating race and crime is the disparate statistics relating race and poverty. That's the real problem that needs to be solved because you can't just "fix crime". We fix crime by arresting criminals, which means a disproportionately adverse impact on black people. Assuming you don't want a disproportionately higher percentage of black people to be arrested, or frisked, or shot by police, then the only way to actually fix this is to fix the poverty issue. And that is an entire different issue. But as long as all we do is point to the resulting crime stats and convince black people to protest and riot against the police actions, we're never going to accomplish anything other than perpetuate the actual problem.

The people living in Ferguson are no better off today than they were the day before Brown was shot. In 6 months they will not be any better off. In 6 years they will not be any better off. Not if the sole action is to go after an assumed invisible conspiracy to target black people for police action, they wont be. Because that's not really the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. You have to go after the cause, and that is poverty.

What you need isn't more protests, it's more jobs. What you need isn't rioters, but builders. Well, and a bunch of other stuff as well. The main point is that it is counter productive to just blame the whole thing on "racism". What do you think you'll accomplish? I'm serious here. Let's assume that tomorrow the entire country stopped everything they were doing and said "Alma. Tells us exactly what you want to have happen to fix the race/crime problem and we'll do it." What would you say? It's easy to argue against something, to yell and scream and rant and rage against the unfairness of it all. But that's usually not productive. It's much harder to determine a positive path to follow. But that's what is needed here. Pointing fingers and blaming people isn't going to help.

Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?
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#62 Mar 25 2015 at 7:59 PM Rating: Good
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Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?

Change snow to air. There was probably some context I didn't read there, but **** it, I'm tired of snow.
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#63 Mar 25 2015 at 8:14 PM Rating: Good
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Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it? Change snow to air. There was probably some context I didn't read there, but **** it, I'm tired of snow.
We used to get snow here in The Shire, but it's been many a long day week month last year since we've seen any. Ship us some.

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#64 Mar 26 2015 at 5:12 AM Rating: Good
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Gbaji wrote:
Ok. Not going to go point for point, because it's become obvious to me that you are still not getting the primary point I've been trying to make.

The targeting is not at the people, but the area. The drug sweeps are conducted in an area. Stop and frisk is conducted in an area. Higher police presence is based on the area. My point is that areas with high crime are going to be targeted for such things because it makes sense to do so in the areas with the highest overall crime rates. Do you understand this?

I agreed to this several times already. That is not the problem. NYC could be called Crime City with "Mayor Contraband" leading a city that makes up half the country's drugs and violence. If the vast majority of your searches yield no contraband then your search criteria is broken. This is more evident if the area which you are searching has a high crime and drug rate. Do you not understand this?

Gbaji wrote:
The cause of the disparate statistics relating race and crime is the disparate statistics relating race and poverty. That's the real problem that needs to be solved because you can't just "fix crime".
Being poor does not create crime. You keep saying this doesn't make it true. Furthermore, the statistics show whites to be just as or more guilty. So regardless if you were focusing in poor neighborhoods or in all neighborhoods, the statistics point to white people. You can't "out statistic" those statistics. As mentioned in the video, poor neighborhoods are often trageted because they are less likely and/or capable to fight back.

Gbaji wrote:
We fix crime by arresting criminals, which means a disproportionately adverse impact on black people. Assuming you don't want a disproportionately higher percentage of black people to be arrested, or frisked, or shot by police, then the only way to actually fix this is to fix the poverty issue. And that is an entire different issue. But as long as all we do is point to the resulting crime stats and convince black people to protest and riot against the police actions, we're never going to accomplish anything other than perpetuate the actual problem.
You do realize that white people commit more crime than black people, but black people are arrested more for the same crime? So how does focusing on crime disproportionately affect blacks? Even if that nonsense were true, the outrage isn't against arresting CRIMINALS. I would much rather have a world where police are violating privacy with the trade off of no crime.

Gbaji wrote:
. But as long as all we do is point to the resulting crime stats and convince black people to protest and riot against the police actions, we're never going to accomplish anything other than perpetuate the actual problem.
No one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested!!

Gbaji wrote:
The people living in Ferguson are no better off today than they were the day before Brown was shot. In 6 months they will not be any better off. In 6 years they will not be any better off. Not if the sole action is to go after an assumed invisible conspiracy to target black people for police action, they wont be. Because that's not really the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. You have to go after the cause, and that is poverty.

What you need isn't more protests, it's more jobs. What you need isn't rioters, but builders. Well, and a bunch of other stuff as well. The main point is that it is counter productive to just blame the whole thing on "racism". What do you think you'll accomplish?
The people in Ferguson weren't complaining about poverty at all. This is you. They weren't blaming the police for being poor. They were complaining about the unfair treatment listed in the DoJ report. Those are two completely separate issues.

Gbaji wrote:
Alma. Tells us exactly what you want to have happen to fix the race/crime problem and we'll do it." What would you say? It's easy to argue against something, to yell and scream and rant and rage against the unfairness of it all. But that's usually not productive. It's much harder to determine a positive path to follow. But that's what is needed here. Pointing fingers and blaming people isn't going to help.

Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?
Read above. Poverty was never an issue in this conversation. Your financial status doesn't make you do crime. Furthermore, no one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested. You're creating this fictional environment in order to support your claim. The problem that you keep ignoring (especially with stop and frisk in NYC) is the number of innocent people being stopped even though their demographic is less likely to produce contraband. The outrage from the DoJ report was the acknowledgement of abusing power to earn money. You said yourself that the city was misbehaving, so why can't people be upset about that?
#65 Mar 26 2015 at 5:24 AM Rating: Good
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Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?

Change snow to air. There was probably some context I didn't read there, but **** it, I'm tired of snow.


Please do this.
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#66 Mar 26 2015 at 6:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?

Change snow to air. There was probably some context I didn't read there, but **** it, I'm tired of snow.


Can't you just send it to the Sierras? Thanks in advance.
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#67 Mar 26 2015 at 7:56 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?
Decide who lives and who dies. As it stands, right now I have to fill out paperwork afterwards, and that just gets bothersome.
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#68 Mar 26 2015 at 10:27 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Serious question. What would you do if you had the absolute power to do it?


You mean political/financial/legal power, or "Power" power?
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#69 Mar 26 2015 at 10:35 AM Rating: Good
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Irrelevant as the point is you'd abuse the **** out of it.
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#70 Mar 26 2015 at 10:37 AM Rating: Excellent
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#71 Mar 26 2015 at 10:39 AM Rating: Good
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If it's absolute, then it isn't really abuse.
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#72 Mar 26 2015 at 10:50 AM Rating: Good
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Are you channeling gbaji and no marks left means no rape?
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#73 Mar 26 2015 at 11:01 AM Rating: Good
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"Markless rape" seems like kind of a waste of an absolute power.
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#74 Mar 27 2015 at 6:40 PM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
If the vast majority of your searches yield no contraband then your search criteria is broken. This is more evident if the area which you are searching has a high crime and drug rate. Do you not understand this?


I've already answered this exact point several times, and it's like you just ignore the answer. The problem is that you are assuming that all searches are equal. But there's a huge difference between a search conducted because the officer suspects that there's contraband, and a search conducted because the officer is arresting the person for some reason (like say suspended license, arrest warrants, etc), and is going to impound the vehicle and is therefore also going to search it. In the latter case, you will get a much lower percentage of contraband found per search. But that doesn't mean that the search criteria is "broken" somehow. They are two different types of searches. The problem is that the stats you are looking at conflate these into one set, thus causing you to arrive at an incorrect conclusion.


Quote:
Being poor does not create crime. You keep saying this doesn't make it true.


Sigh:

gbaji wrote:
I did not say that poverty increases (or causes) crime. I said that areas with high poverty tend to also have high crime. There is a correlation between them. And cops have to police most where crime is highest. Thus, they will also police most where poverty is the highest. This means that if one racial group is disproportionately poor, they are going to be disproportionately affected by police actions.


How many times do I have to correct you on this?

Quote:
Furthermore, the statistics show whites to be just as or more guilty.


No, they don't.

Quote:
So regardless if you were focusing in poor neighborhoods or in all neighborhoods, the statistics point to white people.


No. The stats point to poor people in high crime neighborhoods. That this group will contain a disproportionately high percentage of black people is the result of yet another factor that is completely unrelated to police bias.

Quote:
You do realize that white people commit more crime than black people, but black people are arrested more for the same crime?


I realize that you are incredibly bad at interpreting statistics. That claim is not remotely what any stat you have quoted in this thread supports.

Quote:
No one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested!!


When those criminals being arrested are disproportionately black, you do. Kinda the whole point here.


Quote:
The people in Ferguson weren't complaining about poverty at all. This is you. They weren't blaming the police for being poor. They were complaining about the unfair treatment listed in the DoJ report. Those are two completely separate issues.


Yes. I'm well aware that these are two separate issues. My point is that they are focusing on the issue that isn't going to fix anything in their lives, while ignoring the one that will. They should be complaining about poverty. Instead, they are complaining about police bias. That's the problem.

Quote:
Read above. Poverty was never an issue in this conversation. Your financial status doesn't make you do crime. Furthermore, no one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested. You're creating this fictional environment in order to support your claim.


It's not fictional. While your financial status doesn't make you do crime, it vastly affects the degree to which crime affects you. I'm not sure why you keep working so hard to wiggle out of this. People in poor neighborhoods have more issues with police because they live in poor neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, not because of their skin color. I used to live in Spring Valley. It's a poorish blue collar neighborhood. It has some gang and crime problems. I used to get pulled over by police all the time when I lived there. Today, I live in Carmel Valley. It's a neighborhood with 6 figure plus average income. It has very low crime. In the 16 years I've lived here, I have never once been pulled over by a cop. I'm the same person (older, of course). I was not engaged in any criminal behavior all those times I used to get pulled over when I was younger and living in a poorer neighborhood. The sole difference was "driving in a poor neighborhood". Fair or not, cops patrol more in areas with higher crime rates. And these areas tend to also be low income areas. And they are more likely to pull random people over in those areas. That's just the way it is.

This is why I keep saying that the solution is economic. How did I decrease my rate of being hassled by the police? I increased my earnings and moved to a higher rent area. How can black people change their relative police/crime stats? They need to increase their relative economic status. It's the same thing. That's the solution. Wailing about police bias will never solve the actual problem. Never.


Quote:
The problem that you keep ignoring (especially with stop and frisk in NYC) is the number of innocent people being stopped even though their demographic is less likely to produce contraband. The outrage from the DoJ report was the acknowledgement of abusing power to earn money. You said yourself that the city was misbehaving, so why can't people be upset about that?


I'm not ignoring this. I've directly responded to this several times. You are not understanding the stats. The "demographic" is not more or less likely to produce contraband. The stat is about "contraband found per search", and "likelihood of being searched among those who are stopped". That does not tell us anything about the ratio of contraband among the demographics themselves. We can't conclude that "white people are more likely to have contraband". The stats only says that "white people who are searched are more likely to have contraband". But that is most likely because white people are more likely to be searched only when contraband is suspected, while black people are more likely to be searched for other reasons. Given the other stats in Ferguson related to arrest warrants and whatnot, that's not really surprising at all.

This also calls into question your "innocent people" claim. The increased searches among black people is not because the police are just randomly searching otherwise innocent people, but because a higher percentage of black drivers stopped by police have committed some crime (or have warrants, suspended licenses, etc), which then leads to a higher chance of a black owned car being searched even if the cop has no specific reason to believe there is contraband. So while the black driver is more likely to be innocent of carrying contraband in his car, he's more likely to be guilty of something else, which causes a search of the car, thus resulting in the stat you are making such a big deal about.

The point is that you are assuming the stats say things that they don't actually say.

Edited, Mar 27th 2015 5:49pm by gbaji
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#75 Mar 28 2015 at 6:20 AM Rating: Good
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So I'm just going to do one point at a time. I went along with your side points in hopes of eventually going back to the first post you made after coming back to this thread.

Gbaji wrote:
I've already answered this exact point several times, and it's like you just ignore the answer. The problem is that you are assuming that all searches are equal. But there's a huge difference between a search conducted because the officer suspects that there's contraband, and a search conducted because the officer is arresting the person for some reason (like say suspended license, arrest warrants, etc), and is going to impound the vehicle and is therefore also going to search it. In the latter case, you will get a much lower percentage of contraband found per search. But that doesn't mean that the search criteria is "broken" somehow. They are two different types of searches. The problem is that the stats you are looking at conflate these into one set, thus causing you to arrive at an incorrect conclusion.


Almalieque on post 56 wrote:
The point of stop and frisk is to STOP crime before it happens. That's why your speeding car analogy (that I've been trying to get to for awhile) fails, because if the car is speeding, then it already broke the law. Stopping and frisking then becomes part of the process. No one is complaining about searching a drug dealer or gang banger. The problem (which you keep avoiding) is stopping and frisking innocent people based on a criteria that is statistically lower to produce any contraband. 4th amendment and all.

Almalieque on post 60 wrote:
No one cares about drug dealers and gang bangers being stopped and frisked and going to jail. That's what we want to happen.

Almalieque on post 64 wrote:
No one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested!!

Almalieque on post 64 wrote:
Furthermore, no one cares about CRIMINALS being arrested.

Almalieque on post 60 wrote:
The outrage isn't the statistics of criminals being searched. Your argument is that the stats are high because crime is high. However, stop and frisk is an attempt to PREVENT crime before it happens. The complaint is that the vast majority of those people (of any race) were searched with no contraband found or evidence to suggest a criminal activity

Almalieque on post 64 wrote:
Even if that nonsense were true, the outrage isn't against arresting CRIMINALS. I would much rather have a world where police are violating privacy with the trade off of no crime.



Click the spoiler to see me acknowledging that they are two different searches and that the complaint isn't about people breaking the law. You're simply trying to create an argument to debate. I've made very clear that I was referring to stop and frisk statistics, which again, happen PRIOR to any crime. Once you are stopped for anything legit, e.g., traffic violation, etc., then that is part of the procedure.

Gbaji wrote:
When those criminals being arrested are disproportionately black, you do. Kinda the whole point here.
I'll address this as well since it is directly related with above. One point at a time.

You are once again creating an argument to debate. This conversation is not about black criminals being disproportionately arrested. The point of this conversation is about innocent people being targeted. If the FBI did a clean sweep of Chicago/NYC/etc and arrested every black gang banger and drug dealer, I would honestly be happy. It would make people like you harder to use places like Chicago as a tangential excuse for racial discrimination.

****Please just stick with this point until we either agree or disagree. I want to stay on this one post until every point is discussed, not go off to other stuff. I'll take part blame for not staying on topic.
#76 Apr 01 2015 at 6:25 AM Rating: Good
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I'm just reminding Gbaji, just in case his browser crashed and he didn't see the green arrow "again".
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