Stop & Frisk

Stop & Frisk is a procedure used by LEO to literally stop a Citizen , frisk them (for the safety of LEO) and interrogate them, based on a standard "...at a level above a hunch or intuition..."

That means that LEO must have some evidence that the Citizen is a criminal or is engaging in criminal behavior.  He must see a bulge of a pistol, for instance.  SCOTUS has ruled that simply running away from LEO meets the standard.

The standard of Probable Cause is much higher.

You can already see the potential for abuse, no?

The Philadelphia Police Department oversees just over 1.5 million Citizens within the city proper.  In 2009 they performed 253,333 Stop & Frisk actions, and arrested only 8.4% of those stopped.

So, in 91.6% of these Stop & Frisk actions, LEO's criminal radar was not working.

That is: If you accept the premise that the purpose of a Stop & Frisk is to thwart a crime.

If the true intent of Stop & Frisk is to intimidate and condition the populace that LEO may throw you against a wall, pat you down and have their way with you at their whim, then the program is a success.

Philadelphia proper is home to about 1.5 million people.  250,000 Stop & Frisks is a pretty darned high percentage of the population...

SCOTUS permits Stop & Frisk.

Philadelphia is going to modify their procedures in the face of complaints that about 75% of those stopped were black or hispanic.  I do not know what the demographics of Philadelphia Proper are today, do blacks and hispanics represent about 75% of the population? 

No matter, we must examine the premise.

But first, note the premise of the revised rules: They are revising their Stop & Frisk rules not based on the premise that it is unconstitutional and brutally anti-4th Amendment, but rather, that mostly blacks & hispanics are being searched.

Remember the old Soviet farmer complaining to the Party Officials: My neighbor has three pigs and I have only two - kill one of his pigs!

If every racial, ethnic & religious group, if every individual in the nation, would abide and enforce the Founders Intent of the Constitution, all of these abuses drift into nothingness.

Are blacks & hispanics really willing to live in a Police State, so long as their white neighbors are equally oppressed?  How about if black, white & hispanic neighbors identify and engage the true problem, together?  

LEO and the Political Class who direct LEO are the problems.

We can go back to our Founders again to find the solution to this problem.   (All of our answers can be found there, if we look.)

To paraphrase Ben Franklin: We will hang together, or individually...

Here is the story from Philly.

Kerodin
III