President’s task force: similar percentage of black drivers get pulled over as whites, there is no racial bias
Posted on | July 9, 2016 | No Comments
Last year, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended police departments collect and analyze demographic data on all stops, searches and seizures.
Nationally, 13 percent of black drivers were pulled over at least once in 2011, compared with 10 percent of the white drivers, according to a survey by the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Recently I talked to a patient of mine, I will not give her name. She told me that her husband,who is white, was sent to prison for 5 months, as for the second time in 10 years he was caught driving under the influence. Whites get severe punishments by police as well.
I read about the case of Philando Castille. It is a terrible tragedy, a 32 year old man got killed by the policeman during the routine traffic stop based on mistaken identity as policemen believed that he matched the description of an armed robber, who was seen on security video robbing a convenience store at gun point just a few days earlier. According to the girlfriend of Castille, he told the cop that he is getting his IDs from the pocket and that he has a gun. The policeman said that he told Castile not to get IDs and keep his hands on the steering wheel and that Castille continued disregarding the order and reaching into his pocket. The cop thought that he is reaching for the gun and will shoot him, he thought that his life was in danger and the cop shot Castille in the arm. The bullet pierced his torso and he was killed. It was strange to me that Castille’s girlfriend did not try to put pressure on the would, call 911, do CPR. Instead she started recording Facebook video. This was extremely bizarre. It was equally bizarre that the policemen did not try to put pressure and stop bleeding or administer CPR. In my opinion the policeman should have used a taser gun, non-deadly force. Maybe, there has to be legislation that law enforcement has to use non-deadly force first.
However, as far as profiling goes in claims that he was stopped for no reason, Castille’s driving record show that on a number of occasions he drove when his license was expired, without insurance, with no seat belt, with broken tail light, while speeding and he pled guilty to a number of these violations.
I believe that we need to train police in using non-deadly force and we need civics classes in schools, starting from middle school, in teaching young people to cooperate with police, do what they are told by police in order to minimize occurrence of incidents where individuals are killed by police.
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