By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Racial profiling or simply good police work is the elephant in the closet question in the eternal debate over whether police color target black and Hispanic men in street stops under the guise of fighting crime. There’s no debate about whether police do stop tens of thousands of black and Hispanic every year on the streets and that they are far more likely to be stopped than white men. The Associated Press is the latest to weigh in on the chronic problem. It found that police stopped a staggering one million plus persons on big city streets in 2008. As usual the overwhelming majority were black and Hispanic males.
The ACLU and civil rights groups again charged that the stops were racially motivated. Police groups and city officials again denied it. They countered that the stops not only were warranted but are the major reason for the plunge in crime to the lowest level in decades.
There may be some validity to the police contention. Crime is way down. Streets are arguably safer. Most citizens and that include a significant number of blacks and Hispanic residents and community groups, silently and in some cases publicly, applaud police efforts to fight crime. They are more likely the victims of black on black and Hispanic on Hispanic crime and violence.
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