Racial Profiling Works
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI) are expected to introduce the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 (ERPA), which will prohibit federal law enforcement agencies from engaging in racial profiling and encourage states to adopt the same type of ban on the practice. The legislation will also permit victims of racial profiling to take legal action and requires states to establish procedures for victims to file complaints against police officers who racially profile. In addition, the bill provides data collection demonstration and best practice incentive grants to state and local law enforcement agencies.
Pretend you are a screener at a airport and an obvious muslim comes up and acts suspicious. If ERPA passed and you search the muslim without finding evidence of bad intent, you would be accused of racism and possibly fired and even fined! Islamic terrorists are smart enough to send out a few suspicious decoys until the airport screeners learn to just not question muslims.
I can speak as a former police officer, I made many traffic stops based on what the driver looked like and what kind of car they drove. As you become honed in your policing skills, you are able to walk down the street and pick out people that had warrants. It’s like any other job in the world, after you do it for awhile you become very proficient in it. Profiling will continue on in every aspect of law enforcement even if this Bill passes. The only changes will be that the officer will have to articulate himself better on why they stopped the individual and that more criminals will sue the police departments, I guess shitty lawyers need work too!
Racial Profiling leads to Explosive Arrest
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Evidence used to jail a college student on explosives charges should be thrown out because authorities racially profiled the man, his attorney argued in court documents filed Friday.Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, was a passenger in a car with a fellow University of South Florida student when they were stopped for speeding near a Charleston, S.C., Navy weapons station in August. Megahed’s attorney contends both men, who are of Egyptian descent, were further detained and illegally searched based on “racial profiling.”Authorities said they found ammunition and materials to make pipe bombs in the students’ car.
Deputies referred to Megahed and Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed in radio communications as members of the “Taliban” and “graduates of suicide bomber school,” Megahed’s attorney wrote.
The motion states that some of the remarks were made by Berkeley County Deputy Lamar Blakely, who found much of the evidence that is the basis of the government’s case.
Blakely had no right to detain the men after determining that both had valid identification and no outstanding warrants, according to the court documents. Instead, he was acting on a “racist premise,” wrote James W. Smith III, an assistant federal public defender.
Blakely could not be reached by telephone for comment at the sheriff’s office on Friday afternoon.
Federal prosecutors have presented no evidence indicating that the men planned an attack. The students claimed they were on a sightseeing trip to Carolina beaches.
Mohamed, 26, also faces terrorism-related charges for allegedly making and posting on the Internet a video demonstrating how to convert a remote-control toy into a detonator for a bomb.
Both have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bond.
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