In Terry v. Ohio <\/i>(1968), Officer-Detective Martin McFadden was patrolling Downtown Cleveland when he observed two men stopping to stare in a store windows and then confer about 24 times.\u00a0 A third man joined them and they all met up a couple blocks away.\u00a0 Due to his suspicion, McFadden identified himself as a police officer and asked for the men\u2019s identification.\u00a0 The men began whispering to each other, giving the cop probable cause due to a safety concern for a search.\u00a0 He patted down the three men, found weapons, and arrested them.<\/p>\n
As discussed in the court\u2019s opinion, it\u2019s pretty crazy how easy it is for an officer to frisk someone based on suspicion.\u00a0 In a perfect world, I think this is completely reasonable.\u00a0 It makes sense to protect the public and the officer themselves.\u00a0 However, it becomes inevitable that the issue of racial profiling arises.<\/p>\n
As I read about in the two articles attached, this became a huge problem, especially, in New York City.\u00a0 The New York Civil Liberties Union shows statistics of the city\u2019s use of the stop and frisk policy.\u00a0 The annual results from 2002 to 2016 were pretty consistent; roughly 77-90% of people stopped and frisked were innocent.\u00a0 The racial majority was always blacks, then hispanics, and, in a very small percentage, whites. In a New York Times<\/i> article, Judge Scheindlin has been advocating to fix this problem by laying out a revamping of the police system and creating a monitor to oversee stop and frisk procedures.\u00a0 The city argued that minority groups tend to commit more crimes, so profiling against them is accurate.\u00a0 I do not believe that statistic in anyway justifies stopping to frisk an innocent African-American individual carrying on with their day.\u00a0 It seems very impractical to rid all police officers of bias, but, a monitor seems like it would definitely help to keep them accountable.<\/p>\n