Today in a New Jersy newspaper, it talked about how police used to be deemed racist because they would pull over people fitting certain discritptions of "minorities in old vans or cars" on the NJ turnpike suspected of drug or weapon transporting. Because they did this, they were charged with racism and segregation and could not continue doing it. The article said though that since they stopped (1998) the gun and drug seizures have dropped and the murder rate in certain cities has gone up. So, should they have been deemed racist or were they just doing their job?

Mind linking to the article if it can be found online?

"The murder rate in certain cities has gone up" is pretty meaningless as a statistic; murder rates probably went down in some other certain cities. What does that have to do with police stopping minorities? I don't see a link between the two.

If gun and drug seizures have gone down, I'd say that's the price of liberty. Police can't just pull over people "because they look like druggies in vans" - it's not a race issue, but a probable cause issue: the Fourth Amendment says that you can't pull over and search people just because you don't like the looks of them. You have to have a fairly good reason to believe they're breaking the law before you can do that. I'm guessing that a judge concluded that "they're black and look like druggies" does not constitute probable cause and ordered them to stop it.

Such is my take on the matter. Without the original article at hand, it's hard to evaluate what they're talking about.

Here is the original article

But anyway, what if the cops get a radio call saying "...a black male in a red ford has just shot five people and has several guns with him." It is the cops duty to pull over every red ford, especially with black people driving, because it is there job.

I don't disagree that you say it could be considered racist, becuase some cops, unfortunatley are. As you can see though, the stopping of this pulling over is directly related to the weapons seizure and violence. This means that the cops were not racist, they were right.

It is sad, but undoubtedly true. If 90% of people smuggling drugs and guns into Newark are minorities driving beaten up vans, then cops should, as their job, be obligated to search and seize the vehicles if there are indeed guns in the car.

Plus it's not like they only judge based off of skin, they choose random things like every third car, or every blue car, judging by race shouldn't be singled out. I ask this: Would it or would it not be okay if by violating one person's rights you could save the lives of countless others? Normally I'm not for the taking away of rights but in situations like these I do understand the benefits versus the loss.

I agree. The same issue came up when police searched muslims more readily after 9/11. If those were the people causing the problems, they should get "special attention." For this turnpike seaching, black people said if it made them safer they did not care. After 9/11, American muslims said they did not mind being searched if it meant they were safer.

I wouldn't mind being stopped by authorities to ensure the safety of our people. I have nothing to hide.