11-Year-Old Deemed ‘Suspicous’ For Baggy Pants And Hoodie

[n2doc]

Last year, the Miami Herald uncovered a Miami Gardens, Florida, police program that resulted in hundreds of seemingly suspicionless police stops against employees and customers at one convenience store. Employees were repeatedly charged with minor infractions such as trespassing over the objection of the store’s owner, in a “zero tolerance” program that gave police “broad powers to stop and arrest people who appear to be loitering or trespassing at the participating business,” according to the Herald.

Six months later, a Fusion investigation has revealed that the police department stopped 56,922 individuals who were never arrested between 2008 and 2013 — the equivalent of more than half the city’s population — in what was described by one public defender as “New York City stop-and-frisk on steroids.” Thousands of others were arrested after the stops.

Among those stopped without arrest was an 11-year-old black boy on his way to football practice. The police report dubbed him a “suspicious person,” noting only that they had “just cause” because he was “wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves.”

In a review of more than 30,000 field contact reports, Fusion found that individuals were frequently stopped by different officers within minutes of each other. Individuals as old as 99 and as young as 5 were deemed “suspicious.” “Two officers from the MGPD told Fusion that high-ranking department officials gave them orders to “bring in the numbers” by conducting stops and arrests,” according to the report. “One officer said he was ordered to stop all black males between 15 and 30 years of age.” Another officer said records were falsified to meet quotas, and that some of those individuals were “still sitting in jail.”

more

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/30/3443069/in-florida-city-with-rampant-stop-and-frisks-11-year-old-boy-was-deemed-suspicous-for-baggy-pants-and-hoodie/

[gollygee]

1. Wearing sports gear to play a sport is suspicious

if you're black.

This kind of thing is a form of terrorism IMO. Imagine being the mom of that kid, sending him to his football practice, dressed appropriately for going to football practice, and having him arrested. This kind of thing makes people live their lives differently. As does the Trayvon Martin killing, etc. People live their lives differently because racial profiling creates the kind of atmosphere that terrorism creates.

[mopinko]

2. i have a psycho vigilante troll neighbor.

used to listen to the scanner, and post calls on his blog. cpd doesnt use that anymore.

every kid hanging on the corner was a drug dealer. in the summer, it was white tshirts. but mostly it was hoodies. that's what he called them, hoodies.
luckily the guy has too many dui's, and the cops know him too well to ever let him have a gun.
he gets into enough trouble with his camera.

they are out there.
sometimes i think this is what comes of too many bubble tests.

[surrealAmerican]

3. Why were they doing this?

Were they trying to put the place out of business?
Were they getting kickbacks from a private prison?
Were they making money off seized property?

[bettyellen]

4. quotas on tiny crimes, and reluctance to file report on violent ones. Every major city is doing this

now. It is disturbing.