Intro In criminal justice class notes

 

If I were a police officer Conducting routine patrol in a high crime area of a large city at night and saw a car commit a minor traffic violation & decided to conduct a traffic stop on the driver. When I approached the driver, he became very angry & says that I only pulled him over because he was black.

While I would try to reassure & calm him; it had nothing to do with race & explain to him the reason why I was pulling him over in the first place. If he continued to be agitated, I would try to resolve the issue with words and ultimately if it persist, I will be placing him in handcuffs for my personal protection.

 The first concern would have to be my own & the public's safety. I would treat him with respect and refrain from speculations, but I would have to keep in awareness to the high crime neighborhood. I would clarify to him he was not under arrest, that I only placed him in handcuffs to be detained, until other units come to assist & until if he did not calm down, I would be forced to place him under arrest.

While i do my best to have a small talk with him to try and eradicate the obstacle he put up in this contact. Notwithstanding, no matter what the driver's race I was would control the situation the same way. Finally, I would cite him, if he broke the law then it would be lawful to give him a ticket. I couldn't allow him to use the race card to not be ticketed. In point, If I did not cite him all other races could and probably would say same tune & there would be no tickets given out to minorities.

I consider the issue we are Discussing about is how do we deal with obstinate racial barriers, and do we allow them to influence the calls we make as police officers to "keep the peace", I believe that the way we handle circumstances as a police officers should be colorblind, it should not matter if the person is a minority or not, if the crimes fit cause to be cited or an arrest made, then it should transpire.