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I had that happen to me when I was a student living in west philly, also once in Kensington and once in Camden. The later two are/were particularly notorious,

I had that happen to me when I was a student living in west philly, also once in Kensington and once in Camden. The later two are/were particularly notorious, though my neighborhood in west philly wasn't very nice either. I've heard mixed reports of cops in Camden, but the cops I've encountered in Philly all seemed genuinely concerned with protecting the law abiding residents from crime and are pretty good at getting to know the people living in a neighborhood. After we met the first time, the cop in west philly who cautioned me against the neighborhood remembered me for the remaining years I lived here and on one occasion when I was particularly careless probably saved my ass.

scarface74 7y ago
Well.... https://whyy.org/articles/in-racially-diverse-14th-district-philly-police-target-black-drivers-3-times-more-than-whites-analysis-shows/ https://whyy.org/articles/in-racially-diverse-14th-district-...
- darkpuma 7y ago
  I don't think that article is giving you a balanced overview of the situation in Philadelphia. Specifically it says nothing of Major Nutter at all and the work he and the Philadelphia police did to clean up the city and make it safer for all law abiding residents, young black men in particular who Nutter recognized as being particularly at risk for becoming victims of crime. From what I saw, Nutter was a good man motivated by compassion for the people of Philadelphia, and being that good man meant that sometimes you had to break some hard truths to people. And sometimes that made Nutter unpopular, but from what I've personally observed in the city, he was doing a lot of good. Nutter didn't have police go into black neighborhoods to hassle them for sport; he did it because the crime in those communities harms the common people a hell of a lot more than an active and attentive police presence. Do police in Philly pull over black people 3x as often? Probably. Are there 3x as many police officers in black neighborhoods in Philly? From what I've seen, at least that many. And why? Because that's where the victims of crime are at. (Note that under Nutter's (white male) successor, Jim Kenney, crime is up again (351 homicides in 2018, compared to 246 five years earlier.) That guy is a bumbling idiot with his head in he clouds as far as I'm concerned. Might I suggest that to Nutter, the concerns of the black community are personal, while to Kenney they are academic? That Nutty was motivated to actually make a difference, while Kenney seems to be motivated by maintaining the appearance of doing something, rather than actually making a difference. This is perhaps best exemplified by his ineffectual but incredibly regressive soda tax (https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2016/04/24/bernie-sanders-soda-tax-op-ed/) https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2016/04/24/bernie-sanders...)
  - scarface74 7y ago
    But in the other two portions of the district – including parts of West Oak Lane and Chestnut Hill, where only about half of the population is black – some eight out of 10 of all police vehicle stops target black drivers. They aren’t just disproportionately pulling over Blacks in Black neighborhoods. But even though 80 percent of police stops involve black drivers, white drivers are 40 percent more likely to be ticketed. Mellon points to that gap as evidence that cars with black occupants are routinely being pulled over for no reason. Also they are using traffic stops as an excuse to invade user privacy.

scarface74 7y ago

Well.... https://whyy.org/articles/in-racially-diverse-14th-district-philly-police-target-black-drivers-3-times-more-than-whites-analysis-shows/ https://whyy.org/articles/in-racially-diverse-14th-district-...

darkpuma 7y ago
I don't think that article is giving you a balanced overview of the situation in Philadelphia. Specifically it says nothing of Major Nutter at all and the work he and the Philadelphia police did to clean up the city and make it safer for all law abiding residents, young black men in particular who Nutter recognized as being particularly at risk for becoming victims of crime. From what I saw, Nutter was a good man motivated by compassion for the people of Philadelphia, and being that good man meant that sometimes you had to break some hard truths to people. And sometimes that made Nutter unpopular, but from what I've personally observed in the city, he was doing a lot of good. Nutter didn't have police go into black neighborhoods to hassle them for sport; he did it because the crime in those communities harms the common people a hell of a lot more than an active and attentive police presence. Do police in Philly pull over black people 3x as often? Probably. Are there 3x as many police officers in black neighborhoods in Philly? From what I've seen, at least that many. And why? Because that's where the victims of crime are at. (Note that under Nutter's (white male) successor, Jim Kenney, crime is up again (351 homicides in 2018, compared to 246 five years earlier.) That guy is a bumbling idiot with his head in he clouds as far as I'm concerned. Might I suggest that to Nutter, the concerns of the black community are personal, while to Kenney they are academic? That Nutty was motivated to actually make a difference, while Kenney seems to be motivated by maintaining the appearance of doing something, rather than actually making a difference. This is perhaps best exemplified by his ineffectual but incredibly regressive soda tax (https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2016/04/24/bernie-sanders-soda-tax-op-ed/) https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2016/04/24/bernie-sanders...)
- scarface74 7y ago
  But in the other two portions of the district – including parts of West Oak Lane and Chestnut Hill, where only about half of the population is black – some eight out of 10 of all police vehicle stops target black drivers. They aren’t just disproportionately pulling over Blacks in Black neighborhoods. But even though 80 percent of police stops involve black drivers, white drivers are 40 percent more likely to be ticketed. Mellon points to that gap as evidence that cars with black occupants are routinely being pulled over for no reason. Also they are using traffic stops as an excuse to invade user privacy.