I will freely admit, I am more frightened by the possibility of a No-knock SWAT raid gone wrong ( wrong address, etc) than I am of an actual home invasion. I'm honestly looking forward to my husbands next post, where we will have on-base housing.

The base housing is small, but you get to actually know your neighbors, and you don't get swatted, or notices about sexual predators moving into the next block.(yeah, just got one, made my daughter memorize the face and promise to not open the door to anyone until she looked out of the window)

It's a sad state of affairs when you fear both cops and criminals, unfortunately, the cops have only themselves to blame.

Oooh, gonna commit a thoughtcrime here.

Of course he was racially profiled. Profiling, which is a law enforcement technique dating back to the Roman centurions, is still used frequently by cops everywhere. Why? Because it works.

Cooper was pulled over Driving While Black because so many of his black brethren commit crimes of assault, including rape and murder. His black brethren deal drugs. His black brethren commit property crimes. His black brethren do all these things in numbers way out of proportion to their numbers in the population.

This is all statistically proven; I'm not pulling these things out of my ass. The FBI Uniform Crime Report validates everything I've said so far.

Now, I feel for Mr. Cooper. He is obeying the law...minding his own business....paying his taxes and being the sort of upstanding American we all aspire to be. (Well, I don't know him, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Yet he is persistently pulled over while DWB, and subjected to interrogations and searches.

Why? Because that cop seeing Mr. Cooper didn't see Mr. Cooper and everything good Mr. Cooper is; he saw a black man who matched the description of the suspect wanted in connection with one of the many crimes committed by blacks each and every day in every city in this country. Mr. Cooper got caught in a conundrum created by his own ethnic group.

I feel for him, but I really don't see this ever ending for him until the crime rate in the black community drops to the extent that cops aren't required to spend so much time policing that community.

Now I hold no brief for cops; I despise them, as a rule. But Mr. Cooper is reaping the bitter harvest of generations of black criminality, and I have no easy answer to his problem. That cop has no way of knowing Mr. Cooper isn't the suspect they want unless they stop him and question him. s

One thing that annoys me about Mr. Cooper is his insistence on becoming a martyr; the conditions which created his perceived martyrdom have nothing to do with me, and everything to do with his black brethren, who among all ethnic groups in this country, have done the least to assimilate and be better Americans.

"Cooper was pulled over Driving While Black because so many of his black brethren commit crimes of assault, including rape and murder. His black brethren deal drugs. His black brethren commit property crimes. His black brethren do all these things in numbers way out of proportion to their numbers in the population."

Truth be told, I am not so thrilled with the actions of my white brethren, nor do I feel especially compelled to identify myself as one, or greet my fellow white brethren as my brethren or be responsible for their stupid behaviors (like writing ignorant crap all over my webs.)

Amirite bro or amirite?

Here's the thing. He kind of is a martyr.

Mr. Cooper was driving a car, not walking down the street.

What possible description of him could there have been, that made him "match the description" of a suspect?

Remember, they approached him ready to shoot without any possible indication that he was actually a violent suspect.

His bretheren...also known as people who have the same skin color, are totally irrelevant on this one.

I'm not arguing your data.

What I AM saying is, that "driver is black" is not a justification for that kind of approach to a citizen not actively engaged in any kind of violent crime.

And besides, he makes a very good point, do we REALLY believe the cops would have fessed up if they'd accidentally shot him?

I've lost all faith in the honour of the police.

>>do we REALLY believe the cops would have fessed up if they'd accidentally shot him?

The answer to that is no.

What roadgeek says is true, as far as it goes; and yet, quite a few of the laws were written for the purpose of singling out and criminalizing members of minority groups in the first place. (Look up the historical beginnings of drug prohibition in any decent college library.)

The bottom line in all these incidents has to be that if you point a gun in someone's face and put them through what Mr. Cooper went through, you need to at least pay for the harm you've done -- and if there wasn't the kind of specific reason that roadgeek is willing to uncritically assume, you need to pay for it out of your own pocket, not the taxpayers'.

And if it happens more than once or twice in a year, you shouldn't be trusted with a badge.

A problem with the UCR is the racial classifications. You have White, Black, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander. Why is there no Hispanic? How about White First generation Europe?

When the UCR was started in the 30's I believe the UCR had categories like Irish, Spanish, French, etc. That difference makes profiling questionable.

I will say this is a DWB case. He needs to get a Bluetooth camera and then record every encounter. It is sad, but that is reality.

Police officers today are a lot different than the civilian keepers-of-the-peace I occasionally interacted with when I was a mischievous kid.

http://i2.mail.com/224/1893224,h=425,pd=1,w=620.jpg

Could this "Change" reflect a change in the government's view of its role in our society and its relationship with the citizens?

Which blog item? That's a dead link.

"Could this "Change" reflect a change in the government's view of its role in our society and its relationship with the citizens? "

Absolutely. Policing in the 21st century seems to have devolved into a quasi-army fighting an ill-defined enemy. The fight is viewed as a life-and-death situation that justifies any action. Citizens are collateral damage, and the police have a lot less regard for that than the actual U.S. military does.

At some point the citizenry may decide that it has no dog in this fight. I don't know what happens after that. During the U.S. Civil War, there were a lot of "mountain people" who wanted to form their own state, secede from the Confederacy, and declare themselves neutral. The main thing that stopped them, from what I've been able to figure, was the fear that doing so would make them targets for both sides.

"harvest of generations of black criminality, and I have no easy answer to his problem"

What does it matter what other black people have done or do. You do not get to have the police break constitutional laws simply because what others do. The Justice System is here for laws that YOU as the INDIVIDUAL break.

Also you are forgetting black African Africans that come to this country and are nothing like African Americans in terms of crime stats. They usually end up becoming doctors and lawyers. But let's lump all black people together right?

I'm going to start saying all white men are serial killers because it's such a high crime stat.

In fairness Ppen, they're "lumped together" to borrow your phrase, because even though they perform well, they share the same physical traits as the high crime bloc. Can you tell the difference between a black immigrant and someone born in the U.S.?

"among all ethnic groups in this country, have done the least to assimilate and be better Americans."

Jesus man. First off most blacks in this country have been here longer than most whites (generationally speaking). They don't need to assimilate into shit because they are and always have been fundamentally American. Do you get that?

I loathe this kind of rhetoric. Their culture is every bit as American as any white persons.

Robert,

I understand your point but it's like the government is nowadays about punishing people before a crime is proven. I distinctly remember our constitution being the opposite.

It doesn't matter how high the crime rate is among black males, you do not persecute people for the sins of others. And this cop killer guy wasn't even the stereotypical "black thug".

To me it's like with all men suddenly being under suspicion of being pedophiles if they dare work with children.

I get it, there are segments of the population that do bad things at a disproportionate rate, doesn't matter. We are not here to punish the innocent in order of the off chance of catching the guilty.

"At some point the citizenry may decide that it has no dog in this fight. I don't know what happens after that"

A more frightening prospect is that perhaps this is just the kind of state that the majority of Americans want and like. This crap has been going on for decades, when last did you see significant proportions of the population vote against it? Speak out against it? Why do they need to use so much force against a random suspected suspect who is cooperating? Maybe a majority of Americans are happy with this corrupt rotten system that tramples on those at the bottom, that wields excessive force against innocent people in exchange for perceived order. Even in this thread we have people like roadgeek saying this is all OK because, you know, the blacks this and the blacks that.

Maybe Martin Luther King said it best when he referred to "the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice" .. it's still the same attitude of the common voter.

"... among all ethnic groups in this country, have done the least to assimilate and be better Americans"

I'm definitely not some liberal, quite the opposite, but I'm going to sound like one for a moment ... assuming you refer to those that situate themselves outside of the rule of law, have you considered that some of them might feel a perhaps partially justified aversion to 'assimilating' into a culture that is based on principles like using excessive force against an underclass? If being a "better American" means being "better" at racially profiling, and being "better" at using massive amounts of force against innocent black people for 'driving while black', and being "better" at criminalizing black breadwinners for victimless crimes like possession of marijuana - then sorry, any young black person with some moral sense is probably not going to feel an inclination to strive toward this ideal of "better".

You know what genuinely MAKES people want to strive to 'assimilate' into a society? If they see that that society is based on solid principles of civilized justice and morality.

What we're trying to do, in effect, is creating an unjust society (that right-thinking people shouldn't want to 'assimilate' into, if you think about it), and then trying to use force to force them to 'assimilate' into. Rather create a society that people WANT, voluntarily, to join, because that society stands for principles (like not using excessive force against innocent people because they're black, and not covering up the killing of innocent people, etc.).

Not to mention that of all the ethnic groups who have moved to the U.S., blacks are the one group who did not do so voluntarily and haven't exactly been treated with loving kindness since.

The officer told me to put my hands out the car (I did), then told me to exit the vehicle (I did), when I got out I now saw 4 police cars and 6 officers in defensive stances with 3 AR-15 assault rifles pointed at me, followed by 3 hand guns,

Wow, that's enough bacon to drive all the muslims out of California!

Seriously, though, it does annoy me to see several cop cars all at one traffic stop.