4 ms·

I am not white myself and have never committed anything anyone sane would consider a crime. Yet I have been picked up and thrown in jail several times. Last tim

by bugsy 16y ago

I am not white myself and have never committed anything anyone sane would consider a crime. Yet I have been picked up and thrown in jail several times. Last time was because I was walking my dog at the park without a leash. I have never heard of a white person arrested for this. If someone was raped in the park the week I was walking my dog there, I know I would have been the primary suspect because that's how this works.

AndyKelley 16y ago
Where do you live? I can't even conceive of something like that happening here in Phoenix, AZ. Seriously, until I started reading stories like this on the Internet, I thought people were needlessly indulging in fake drama when they talked about racism.
- Natsu 16y ago
  > I can't even conceive of something like that happening here in Phoenix, AZ. Have you ever read Phoenix news as reported by out-of-state newspapers? I'm guessing that you haven't.
  - AndyKelley 16y ago
    I must admit that I don't read much news at all. What's our reputation?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - wvoq 16y ago
      You're aware that you live in a state where the police can stop you and ask for your papers if you're brown and speaking Spanish, right?
      - AndyKelley 16y ago
        It is my understanding that police must first have a "reasonable suspicion" in order to stop you, and only then under the new law, if they have "reason to suspect" that you are an illegal immigrant, that they are then required to ask for papers.
        wvoq 16y ago
        Police are allowed to take into consideration factors like "race, color or national origin" when deciding whether to ask for your papers.
        AndyKelley 16y ago
        Those factors, statistically, do have a huge impact on the probability of whether or not the person is in the country illegally.
        Natsu 16y ago
        The problem with the law is that people who are US Citizens get pestered frequently based on a trait they cannot change. In order to be useful, a test must be sensitive enough to match the trait you're looking for. Suppose you have a test that could detect something with a 1% false positive rate and which never produces false negatives. Further suppose that the trait you're looking for occurs in 0.001% of the population tested. Using that test, you would flag 99 innocent people for every guilty person.
        AndyKelley 16y ago
        I agree that we want to avoid false positives as much as possible, even to the point where we miss true positives. But the law we're talking about is for after police have already stopped a suspect for a different reason, a reason that is not allowed to have anything to do with skin color. I think it could still be an issue, however, because officers have been known to stop people for silly reasons, such as "rolling through a stop sign," when they really want to stop them because their skin color looks suspicious. I think this is a problem, it's really hard to fight against. So this is an argument against that law.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- bugsy 16y ago
  The dog arrest incident happened in a smallish town in the southeast where I was doing some work. It turns out having a dog not on a leash is a Class C Misdemeanor, but it's one of those sorts of laws that even locals don't know about because it's only enforced against people they want to enforce it against. So for a Class C Misdemeanor, which is a pretty serious crime, you have to be booked. At the time I was carrying a US passport which the locals decided was not a valid form of ID, so I was held without bail or hearing until trial. I managed to get word to an attorney I trusted, he had to come in from the other side of the state, and was able to negotiate with the district attorney to allow me to be free until trial by threatening to file a Habeas Corpus. My attorney also acquired from one of my family members a folder with my credentials and newspaper articles and other citations about my company and work, which he laid out for the local authorities there which suggested the possibility of deep embarrassment in the media if they continued with this nonsense. When I returned for trial the charges were rendered "Nolle Prosequi", which means the charges are not dismissed and you're not acquitted or convicted, but you're free to go until they decide to bring you back in, it's sometimes used as a sort of a warning you are not welcome. This sort of routine, being rousted and brought in on some bogus charges that are never applied to whites, is a common experience among non-model minorities in the USA. It's also very similar to the story of the man in the article. It's obvious to me he did not run the stop sign that was used as a pretense to bring him in for a rape line up.
  - AndyKelley 16y ago
    This story incites anger and hatred in me. I feel powerless against the authorities that did this to you. I don't have an answer to what we can do about this, other than offer my sympathy. I am sorry.

by bugsy 16y ago

AndyKelley 16y ago

Where do you live? I can't even conceive of something like that happening here in Phoenix, AZ. Seriously, until I started reading stories like this on the Internet, I thought people were needlessly indulging in fake drama when they talked about racism.

Natsu 16y ago
> I can't even conceive of something like that happening here in Phoenix, AZ. Have you ever read Phoenix news as reported by out-of-state newspapers? I'm guessing that you haven't.
- AndyKelley 16y ago
  I must admit that I don't read much news at all. What's our reputation?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - wvoq 16y ago
    You're aware that you live in a state where the police can stop you and ask for your papers if you're brown and speaking Spanish, right?
    - AndyKelley 16y ago
      It is my understanding that police must first have a "reasonable suspicion" in order to stop you, and only then under the new law, if they have "reason to suspect" that you are an illegal immigrant, that they are then required to ask for papers.
      - wvoq 16y ago
        Police are allowed to take into consideration factors like "race, color or national origin" when deciding whether to ask for your papers.
        AndyKelley 16y ago
        Those factors, statistically, do have a huge impact on the probability of whether or not the person is in the country illegally.
        Natsu 16y ago
        The problem with the law is that people who are US Citizens get pestered frequently based on a trait they cannot change. In order to be useful, a test must be sensitive enough to match the trait you're looking for. Suppose you have a test that could detect something with a 1% false positive rate and which never produces false negatives. Further suppose that the trait you're looking for occurs in 0.001% of the population tested. Using that test, you would flag 99 innocent people for every guilty person.
        AndyKelley 16y ago
        I agree that we want to avoid false positives as much as possible, even to the point where we miss true positives. But the law we're talking about is for after police have already stopped a suspect for a different reason, a reason that is not allowed to have anything to do with skin color. I think it could still be an issue, however, because officers have been known to stop people for silly reasons, such as "rolling through a stop sign," when they really want to stop them because their skin color looks suspicious. I think this is a problem, it's really hard to fight against. So this is an argument against that law.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
bugsy 16y ago
The dog arrest incident happened in a smallish town in the southeast where I was doing some work. It turns out having a dog not on a leash is a Class C Misdemeanor, but it's one of those sorts of laws that even locals don't know about because it's only enforced against people they want to enforce it against. So for a Class C Misdemeanor, which is a pretty serious crime, you have to be booked. At the time I was carrying a US passport which the locals decided was not a valid form of ID, so I was held without bail or hearing until trial. I managed to get word to an attorney I trusted, he had to come in from the other side of the state, and was able to negotiate with the district attorney to allow me to be free until trial by threatening to file a Habeas Corpus. My attorney also acquired from one of my family members a folder with my credentials and newspaper articles and other citations about my company and work, which he laid out for the local authorities there which suggested the possibility of deep embarrassment in the media if they continued with this nonsense. When I returned for trial the charges were rendered "Nolle Prosequi", which means the charges are not dismissed and you're not acquitted or convicted, but you're free to go until they decide to bring you back in, it's sometimes used as a sort of a warning you are not welcome. This sort of routine, being rousted and brought in on some bogus charges that are never applied to whites, is a common experience among non-model minorities in the USA. It's also very similar to the story of the man in the article. It's obvious to me he did not run the stop sign that was used as a pretense to bring him in for a rape line up.
- AndyKelley 16y ago
  This story incites anger and hatred in me. I feel powerless against the authorities that did this to you. I don't have an answer to what we can do about this, other than offer my sympathy. I am sorry.