Comments

1. Nick, mostly says:
   August 29, 2012 at 11:11 am

   First time I was frisked I was just thankful they didn’t to a cavity search on me (and no, not because I was hiding anything).

   I like the guy who was hopeful the three guys who frisked him were plain-clothes officers because, otherwise, he just got molested.

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2. Shawn Maxam says:
   August 29, 2012 at 11:13 am

   Literally a hundred times. I grew up in Brooklyn in the mid-90s.

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3. Mike L says:
   August 29, 2012 at 4:06 pm

   I remember being shocked when I found out that all of my Latin friends had been stopped and questioned by the police at least once in their lives – most for walking around with a backpack in a neighborhood where there had been “recent graffiti” and a backpack can apparently “conceal spray paint cans.”

   I still think this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable on the part of the police. It’s extremely offensive to hear that the police should be allowed to just put their hands on you when you are simply trying to walk down the street.

   But I don’t think outrage will solve this problem.

   I live in San Francisco, and recently the government has considered implementing a New York style stop-and-frisk policy. Obviously, it’s being opposed by many groups within the city. I would personally prefer it if this policy did not go forward.

   Yet what isn’t being discussed is what led the extremely liberal government of San Francisco to even consider such a policy in the first place. Seriously, how bad do things have to be for the most leftist city on the “Left Coast” to seriously consider implementing a stop and frisk policy?

   Last summer police attempted to stop a man on the light rail line after he did not pay his fare. The man responded by running from the police, and then pulling out a gun and opening fire. He seems to have accidentally shot himself in the exchange. But perhaps more frightening, a random passerby immediately took the man’s gun and hid it from police (this was later determined to have happened from amateur video footage posted to YouTube). The man ended up dying at the scene from his wounds, and was later identified as a convicted sex offender who was wanted in connection with the murder of a pregnant woman in Seattle. You can read a pretty good background of the story here: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/07/21/sfpd-says-man-killed-in-bayview-shot-himself/

   The real issue here is that a particular community in San Francisco, the Bayview, has become so police adverse that passers by will immediately act to frustrate police investigations and hide evidence, even when there is no way they could possibly understand what is going on.

   I do not know, as a citizen of San Francisco, what I am supposed to do to solve this problem. Could the police improve their conduct? Certainly, there’s no question, the police can always do better. But when a neighborhood has so little regard for the police that they would rather see shooters go free than allow a police investigation to go forward unimpeded…well is that really okay?

   It’s probably best if we have some kind of dialogue, and the dialogue seems like it should be pretty clear: the police should stop antagonizing minorities, and residents of high crime neighborhoods should stop antagonizing the police. But how do we get to there from here?

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