Police stop more than 1 million people on street for no reason

[Divine Discontent]

NEW YORK – A teenager trying to get into his apartment after school is confronted by police. A man leaving his workplace chooses a different route back home to avoid officers who roam a particular street.

These and hundreds of thousands of other Americans in big cities have been stopped on the street by police using a law-enforcement practice called stop-and-frisk that alarms civil libertarians but is credited by authorities with helping reduce crime.

Police in major U.S. cities stop and question more than a million people each year — a sharply higher number than just a few years ago. Most are black and Hispanic men. Many are frisked, and nearly all are innocent of any crime, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

And the numbers are rising at the same time crime rates are dropping.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_us/us_stop...
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Crime rates dropping are being used as the reason it is a good thing, being treated like a criminal when you aren't one, be damned! (I am white, I have been stopped once, many years ago, for merely walking on a side street near a strip club I was passing while heading to the grocery store. I was asked for ID, and then I told the cop since he stopped me, I'd like him to take me the rest of the way to the gas station which he did after staring at me for a few seconds.... damn straight, you're gonna!)