I remember a scene from "NYPD Blue" between Sipowicz and his adult son [who wanted to become a cop like his father]. The advice was that the "most basic" thing

I remember a scene from "NYPD Blue" between Sipowicz and his adult son [who wanted to become a cop like his father]. The advice was that the "most basic" thing to remember was "People, Places: The things they do, the times they do them". If you turn a hard Left at Crazy, that's profiling ... but it's not wrong. Going with the example provided in the scene, it's good to figure out that the night-shift worker at the toy factory is bringing home a toy gun for his kid at 3am Christmas Morning instead of a high-profile over-armed robbery in an otherwise deserted industrial district in the middle of the night during a holiday. It seems like the "grey line" shrinks and expands at will depending on the context one desires.