Thread: {Whine}Racial profiling by police must be stopped

Once again the OBL cries "racism"

Racial profiling by police must be stopped, panel says

Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 7, 2008 12:00 AM
A civil-rights panel will recommend that Arizona police agencies take more steps to combat racial profiling after community leaders raised concerns Thursday night that the discriminatory police practice is growing.

The recommendations could include better police training, mandatory data collection by police agencies to help detect patterns of racial profiling, and the creation of an independent citizen commission to investigate racial-profiling complaints.

"Racial profiling is obviously a problem," said Jason Zapata Martinez, chairman of the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board, following a forum held at Phoenix College. More than 50 people attended.

"I know police and (the Arizona Department of Public Safety) have a difficult job . . . but we all are citizens with civil rights," Zapata Martinez said. Zapata Martinez, a professor at Estrella Mountain Community College, said he was also speaking from personal experience. He said he was recently stopped by Phoenix police for speeding, but he believes racial profiling led to the stop.

The forum was held in response to growing concern that racial profiling is increasing in Arizona, in part because police under public pressure have become more involved in enforcing federal immigration laws.

Much of the forum also focused on a recent statewide study that found that African-American and Latino motorists were more than twice as likely to be searched by DPS officers during traffic stops, even though they are less likely to be found carrying contraband than Whites.

Mikel Longman, a DPS chief, said other factors could have led to the findings, not racial profiling. Phoenix resident Pauline Muñoz, 39, told the panel she believes she was the victim of racial profiling when Maricopa County sheriff's deputies stopped her in December for speeding and driving with a suspended license.

Muñoz, who is a U.S. citizen, said she believes deputies thought she was an illegal immigrant because they held her for 15 hours. At one point, she said, deputies drove her to a store in east Phoenix where deputies were holding other people they suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Antonio Bustamante, a Phoenix lawyer with Los Abogados, a Latino legal organization, said Muñoz was stopped as part of operations in December and January in which dozens of illegal immigrants were arrested by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in retaliation for pro-immigrant protests outside Pruitt's furniture store.

Bustamante said Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is using traffic stops as a pretext to arrest illegal immigrants. "This is outrageous, and it's got to stop," Bustamante said.

Arpaio said his officers do not engage in racial profiling. He said the accusations are "just to try to force me to stop immigration crackdowns, and it's not going to work."

Reach the reporter at 602-444-8312.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... m0307.html

So these people admit to speeding, but claim they were victims of racial profiling?

Ok, so lets tell the police not to pull over any speeders who might fit the illegal immigrant profile. Give me a break!

It would be a good idea to have a valid driver's license, if you are caught speeding. Traffic laws are meant for everyone.

Sick of this politically correct BS that has been shoved down our throats for all these years. What happened to truth and honesty? Call a spade a spade and stop this whining! If the shoe fits....!

I guess these idiots think that they can pick and choose which laws to obey or that obeying laws are only meant for American citizens. No wonder the country they came from is so screwed up.

Don't enforce the laws on those people there. But why? Because they are Latino. Whoa, we don't want to offend those people. Ridiculous!