Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘Police’

Everybody knows that American jails are disproportionately packed with Latinos and blacks. But unlike my asshole Republican ex-boss, I think there are more sophisticated reasons, beyond “they commit most of the crimes,” behind this statistical phenomenon. One of those reasons is pretty obvious.

Our legal system is set up to detect and penalize certain types of crime over other types. There are no white-collar crime regulators driving around 24/7 in patrol cars with sirens–or setting up check points on the highway–to catch people in the act of insider trading or tax evasion or selling junk securities. Sure, agencies exist that are supposed to catch that stuff, but they aren’t on every street corner, and the mayor doesn’t go on TV every few months to talk about how he’s putting 2,000 more regulators on the force by next year. There’s no trained dog they can bring to your office to sniff out your illegal white-collar shenanigans.

So it’s automatically more likely that you’re going to get caught committing some sort of street crime. Then, when they do catch someone for that, the punishments for those types of crimes tend to be longer jail sentences than for the other things. You get a lot more time for stealing $20 from a liquor store than for counterfeiting $20 million Picasso paintings. That’s just a fact. And, minorities tend to commit the easier crimes because it takes a few generations of enfranchisement to get access to high-class, low-risk, lucrative, white-collar crimes we would all love to be committing.

That’s the first reason.

But, now the NY Times is saying something that I’ve been saying for years. Statistically speaking, Latinos and blacks also just act more suspiciously–at least in New York.

Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but no more likely to actually be arrested. Of the reasons listed by the police for conducting the stops…the most common reason listed by the police was a category known as “furtive movements.”

Furtive movements. In case you don’t know idiotic police-speak, that’s a five-dollar euphemism for acting sneaky and suspicious. And, that’s kind of annoying, because that’s a natural condition of living in the city in general, but especially of living in the ghetto. There’s a certain amount of constant, mutual suspicion in the hood–nobody really trusts anyone (and shouldn’t). So, naturally, people there (namely, blacks and Latinos) are going to act sneaky and suspicious most of the time, even when they’re not “up to something.” You can’t help it.

A black or Latino dude strutting across the street in a hoodie and shades (at night)–while looking over his shoulder–is probably just as likely to be scared of something than to be doing something scary. But, of course, to a blue-collar street-crime police force, set up to look for only that type of sneakiness, behavior like that is worthy of a pat-down.

Maybe it should be that way. But, what if we also had a white-collar police walking the streets, like I’m asking for: who would look suspicious to them?

Officer, I didn't do anything wrong. What do you mean I was "acting suspicious"?! Get your hands off me. I know my rights!

I’m no lawyer, but I could have sworn there was a difference between committing a crime outright, and being lured into committing one.

Despite that, law enforcement agencies all over the country have instituted the practice of using “bait cars” to fight rampant car theft.

The idea is simple. Cops modify a nice car—usually an Escalade or other ghetto-irresistible ride—with monitoring devices (cameras) and tracking technology (Lo-Jack). Then they sweeten the deal even more by loading the car up with nice shit, like an iPod and some Luther Vandross CDs. Sometimes, they even leave the keys in the ignition. After that’s done, they drop it off in an area where lots of cars are stolen. And wait.

Needless to say, these are the ingredients for some hilarious ghetto antics. In fact, there’s an entire television show devoted to playing footage of people trying to explain themselves to police before being hauled off to jail. You hear shit like, “I was just moving it out of the way so I could get my car out,” or “this is actually my cousin’s car. He knows all about this.” Of course, they don’t realize we’ve all been watching (and hearing them) steal the car all along. I’ve enjoyed more than a few laughs at these poor idiots’ expense.

But I nearly shat my pants (not in a good way) when, during a routine evening out, I spotted this sign in a parking garage here in LA:

Say what? This shit is real? The bait car instantly went from a playing-in-the-background-type-of-show to some real shit in my life. I mean, however unlikely, I could have conceivably been seduced by the bait, and ended up on the very show whose actors I ridicule. I was shocked and pissed.

Look, I’m all for fighting crime, especially crime that puts my insanely in-demand car in any kind of danger. But, what’s next? Where will it end? A bait twenty bucks falling out of a douchebag’s acid-wash-jeans pocket?  A bait just-underage girl? A bait set of answers to the test?

I say that if cops can bait us into committing crimes, we can bait them into thinking they’re fighting crime.

“Oh, sorry Mr. Officer, I didn’t really snatch her purse. Laugh out loud. See, this is Julie, my friend. And we’re just rehearsing for our hipster wannabe-legitimate-theatre play. And, by the way, we were also taping the whole thing. You’re going to be on TV!”