Blog 36 theknockerblog.com

THE KILLING OF POLICE OFFICERS in 2014

Detective Melvin Santiago was a Jersey City police officer who was shot to death on July 13th. Santiago was white. His killer, Lawrence Campbell, was black. Officer Jeffrey Westerfield was a Gary, IN police officer who was shot to death on July 6, 2014. Officer Westerfield was white. His killer, Carl LeEllis Blount, Jr., was black. Officer Perry Renn was an Indianapolis, IN police officer who was shot to death July 5, 2014, the day before Officer Westerfield was killed. Officer Renn was white. His killer, Major Davis, was black. Vermillion Parish Deputy Sheriff Allen Bares was shot and killed by two men June 23, 2014 in Louisiana. Deputy Bares was white. His two killers, Quintlan Richard and Baylon Taylor, were black. Detective Charles Dinwiddie of the Killen, TX Police Dept. was murdered on May 11, 2014 by Marvin Lewis Guy, a black male. Officer Dinwiddie was white. Officer Kevin Jordan of Griffin, GA Police Dept. He was shot and killed on May 31, 2014. Officer Jordan was black. His killer, Michael Bowman, was white. This was a white man murdering a black police officer. Over the past Months, these examples of reported deaths of police officers by gunshot in the U.S. Of those, four were white officers who were murdered by black men. one was a black officer murdered by a white man none were a cause of a riot {Fact checked}

Locally we have had Four Lakewood Washington officers shot while getting Coffee on Sunday, November 29, 2009, at the former Forza Coffee Co. coffee shop. By a black male suspect and a white Seattle officer was ambushed sitting in the patrol car by a black male who felt oppressed by the police. the left took his side Fact checked

I believe that all of this is being driven by the myth that the police are profiling black men. I don’t even know what that means. Profiling, what is it? I found this in the University of Ottawa’s Department of criminology Journal. Thomas Gabor Volume 46/ number 4/2004

“ profiling as defined here, is a
form of racial bias whereby citizens are stopped, questioned, searched,
or even arrested on the basis of their minority status per se, rather than
due to a demonstrated, elevated risk of law-breaking”

.” Several rigorous studies undertaken in the United States provide evidence
of such “racial profiling.” For example, John Lamberth of Temple
University (cited in Harris 1999) sent out teams of observers to the New
Jersey Turnpike and, based on observations of over 42,000 vehicles,
found that black and white drivers violated traffic laws at virtually
identical rates. However, police records indicated that 35% of those
stopped and 73% of those stopped and arrested were black, while only
13.5% of the cars on the road had a black driver or passenger. Lamberth
concluded that “it would appear that the race of the occupants and/or
drivers of the cars is a decisive factor [in the number of stops of blacks]
or a factor with great explanatory power” (Harris 1999: 198).”
Police are being killed because of this perception

How is it possible for these statistics to be twisted in this manor? Are New Jersey State police really sitting by the side of the road and stopping every minority that passes their location? I don’t think so. I would make an educated guess that most of the stops on the turn pike are generated by RADAR and are at least initiated by a speeding vehicle. Sense it is virtually imposable to determine the race of someone prior to the radar contact and there are teams of officers working the radar how does this disparity manifest its self? Are they writing the blacks and letting the whites go? I don’t see that happening. That could only happen if you had two officers working to gather with that in mind. Otherwise the radar operator would become concerned that his chase people were messing up the log with a large number of stop and release notations.

No I would guess that the rate of traffic violations is related to the overall crime rates. People that commit traffic violations commit criminal acts also and sense there is a higher crime rate in the minority community they get stopped more on the turnpike for traffic related offences. Poverty drives this just like it drives the crime rate. I question the Temple study cited in (Harris 1999)

Why do I question this on its face? In 30 years of observations of police I can tell you that 90 % of drivers stopped by a traffic officer are cited and about 10% of those stopped by a Patrol officer are cited. Sense the study was done on the turnpike I have to conclude that the vast majority of the stops were done by traffic officers These guys have a magic number in their heads if you go over that number your most likely will get a ticket. As the saying goes, “day or night black or white stop and cite”.

To study this properly the investigators needs to eliminate their own biases this can be done by picking officers at random and checking the license plates that they run. Send your teams out to check the ethnicity of the owners / operators of the vehicles. Then check the data against the makeup of the area the citations come from. A few bad officers can cause a perception of unfair targeting in a community. Most officers would welcome this kind of scrutiny. There is another variable to think about. If you believe you were unfairly cited you are less likely to Pay the fine and are more likely to have a warrant for your arrest. Arrest warrants are mandatory arrest in most cases Now we have a chicken or the egg dilemma. That’s all I’m going to give you to think about today.

What do you think? Please comment; Keep the dialog going.

S. Henry Knocker
theknockerblog.com