Austin Police officer fired for Racist behavior

[john937]

.... And there is something called reasonable suspicion, which in and of itself is enough to pull someone over.

Unfortunately for this cop, he is on tape making the statement that his reasonable suspicion is:
"Young black men in this part of town don't drive new pickup trucks, the kind cowboys would be driving,
so I started following them.... "

I take issue with the premise of this thread.
He was not fired for being racist (like you said, hard to imagine if his girlfriend is black).
He was fired for acting on "racial profiling" , albeit a minor distinction.

 

[chesty]

It is not stupid you are trained and through experience learn when things are out of place or don't quite seem right. And in this case they were not quite right.

I was pulled over once, when my ex wife was showing me where she resuced a dog (working for the AZ humane society) It was 1 am, in the worst part of Phx, (predominately black/hispanic, we had driven by the house about three times because she wasn't sure which one (it was a known crack house), We were in a brand new Dodge pu truck, two white people and when we went by the cops, I said, we are going to get pulled over. My ex replied how do you know. I said think about it, gave her the description above and sure enough they pulled us over. They were two white cops, they took my (which I am allowed to carry) actually the one cop asked me to hand it to him. We then bullshited for 20 minutes and they let us go. Why, because from their initial contact they ascertained we were not up to any wrong doing. Was I pissed no, I expected it and would have done the same thing.

RyanH you are just flat unqualified to speak of this matter. Go back to school and save a whale or Jane Fonda.

 

[TxCollegeguy]

It's going to take more then a lawyer to save Jane Fonda when those old Vets come out of the woodwork for her

 

[gymnpoppa]

Chesty Help me understand this..

[
We then bullshited for 20 minutes and they let us go. Why, because from their initial contact they ascertained we were not up to any wrong doing. Was I pissed no, I expected it and would have done the same thing.

You said you expected it....fine, you are not the minority on the street, a good percentage of which are not dealing drugs, and such....If I was subjected to this type of "experience" and pulled I would be pissed....and I know for a fact, there are cops who pull people over for no reason......of course this doesn't happpen to you....nor did you have to deal with it growing up...don't you think that would get old...especially if you haven't done a damn thing? There are a lot of people (minorities) getting released from prison these days because of DNA, women, witness admitting they lied...

 

[big dog]

Ryan H,

please come spend a day in inner city New Orleans and see why police discriminate against blacks..

 

[gymnpoppa]

Chesty

My point is if you are wrong, then you must suffer the consequences (Detroit, Cincinatti)(sp).....but there are too many cases where this "experience" has put the wrong people in jail......there was a show on tv last night about men spending 14 years in jail for crimes they didn't commit......white men and black men.....KNOWING that the system has flaws, what kind of training is taking place to ensure that people's lives are being ruined? I mean these investigators admitted that they only targeted these individuals, when they had no phys evidence linking them to th crime.....because of the hearsay of obvious liars (witnesses) with these kinds of people throughout the system as well as lawyers....why wouldn't these investigators conduct more thorough and be required to utilize ALL aspects of evidence in the case? Now, take away your connections and knowledge of the system from your former position and tell me how you would respond to constant harassment/confinement/embarassment from law enforcement officials......(I have several friends in law enforcement here at the local level, and at the fed level, I asked them the same question....) And from them I know they target minorities whenever they can...and will pull them for no reason....

 

[Mitchellm]

Sometimes posting replies on threads of this nature becomes redundant, but, here it goes...

Natymike, it seems that you go out of your way looking for articles and stories that show how bad white folks have it. Don't you have any other hobbies?

The only thing I saw wrong in that article you attached was that the 16 year old fled and ran a red light endangering not only himself, but others. The officer was certainly justified in doing what he did when that occurred. But, his reason for following the truck in the first place was wrong and racially motivitated (as he pretty much stated in his reasons for stopping the truck). Just because a black youth is driving a car that doesn't fit the "profile" is no reason to follow; sorry. And, what was he doing that was so suspicious WALKING out of a store?

And, being formerly married to a black woman and currently dating one doesn't negate racist thinking. Whites and blacks get involved outside of their races for various reasons that usually have nothing to do with racial predispositions.

Being white and driving through a drug-infested black neighborhood and being stopped by police and questioned is not racial profiling. Driving through Beverly Hills after 8:00 at night in an expensive car and being black, pulled over by the police, asked where you're going, asked to get out of the car, sit on the sidewalk and the car searched, THAT'S racial profiling... and it should be stopped.

Try stamp collecting, Natymike. It's less stressful.

 

[chesty]

First, they could have refused the search, it is their constitutional right. Second, Understand what, my point is that I did not fit the typical nature of things for that area. And even if I was black or hispanic driving by a known crack house three times still would have got me pulled over.

Read this again. Reasonable suspicion. The word here is reasonable and if the officer can show this then there is nothing wrong with it. Sure we profile, we all do, you learn what is normal for the area and what is not normal that is why we have beats that we patrol. The same officer in the same beat day in and day out he/she learns what is nomal and what is not. That is part of active law enforcement. Being able to pick up on the subtleties of wrong doing. He did nothing wrong period.

But most won't listen to me cause I ain't black, so they figure that I am racist and agree with the officer because I am. I was harrassed quite frequently by the cops growing up and rightly so, I was a nut!

As for the article we cannot really speak of things we did not witness.

 

[The GTC]

what race was the person that fired him?

 

[plifter]

i call bullshit

no cop in the world would say something stupid like that
at least not officially

you follow anyone for 3 or 4 minutes you can pull them over for something no signal improper display of tag of my favorite careless driving (no firm definition of that)

post a link to cnn or something or scan the newspaper you got it out of or i call bullshit

Yes a cop would say something that stupid. In my area there was an incident where I live a few years ago where a cop stopped some black guys and found a bunch of drugs. When it came time for the trial the prosecutor was interviewing the arresting officer. He asked him what was your probable cause for making the traffic stop and the cop responded by saying "Three Black guys in a Lexus was suspicous".