new thread
First off, I want everyone to know that I have never had an issue with the law, police or anything. I am a working class man, who does his best to respect folks.
So...this beings my story.
Last night after a stressful day of good ol' graphic design, I decided that a pint of brew might make the day a little better, and so I went to my local pubbery. My partner showed up right after (Shaved head bald a cue) and we sat down for a beer. Now he had to run to the bank, and I was on my own.
A well dressed gent walked into the bar and I noticed the bar tender pick up the phone imediately. Now the Bar Tender and I have known each other for years and are quite good friends.
Now while I was waiting near the bar, the finely dressed gent sat next to me, ordered a beer. The bar tender served him, but looked sort of suspicious. Next things I know cops came in.
Now I was not really paying much attention to all of this, but I noticed that the bar tender pointed in our general direction.
The next thing I know, there was a cops hand on my shoulder, and another plain clothed cop advised me to come with him quietly. The bar tender then jumped in stating that he called about the other guy, and not me. The other guy then took the opportunity to leave the location while I was being spoken to by the police.
When I inquired, I found out that this guy was a thief, and a well known drug dealer. When I asked the police why they had thought it was me, the uniformed officer advised me that I fit the "profile" of a dealer, because of my long hair.
So, I ask you this. Should I post a complaint to the local authorities?
I don't know about filing any kind of formal complaint paperwork, but in your place I'd be thinking about talking informally to somebody at your local station. They missed a perfectly good opportunity to nab an actual criminal, because they had their brains wrapped around a vague profile.
to nab an actual criminal, because they had their brains wrapped around a vague profile.
They eventually got him. But yeah. The Copsaid it was an honest mistake.
I dunno...kind of made me sort of wonder.
It seems to me that it is "to serve and protect" unless we have long hair.
I would complain to my local illicit drug dealership that their grooming habits are giving decent, law-abiding longhairs a bad name.
Sorry...was not sure if you were intending to slight me on that. Im just a jeans and T-shirt guy. But I am groomed. The other guy was short haired and suit and tie.
No, man. Sorry. Just trying to make a joke about how drug dealers are giving longhairs a bad name.
While this is an unfortunate incident of stereotyping, no harm was done in the long run and it sounds as though the cops did explain their mistake and I assume an apology was offered. Consider the seedy and hateful side of life that law enforcement officials must work in daily and give them a break on this one.
Have another pint and tell the story with humor to all who will listen.
WWT
I'd agree. When walking I was recently stopped by an officer who soon let me go when he realized I was not his man, without ever even asking me for an ID. At the time I felt I was being singled out because of my long hair and I did mildly complain about it as I departed. Soon after that, I learned from others in the area that the only description he had been given of his suspect was "he had a beard". That, of course, is not much of a description since lots of men have beards, but that is all the officer had to work with. I later joked that since I have a very big beard, perhaps this made me the biggest of suspects?
The officer could have said right off that he was looking for a man with a beard, and the encounter would have been a bit smoother and more tactful, rather than his just immediately accusing me, which is what he had done. Without his laying that groundwork, which would have taken him but a few words, I certainly did feel singled out.
The biggest part of the problem in such cases can often not be stereotyping by the officer, but rather, stereotyping by those who have provided him with his description. Stereotyping is by its definition processing a group as if they all are alike, and this can extend to thinking "they all look alike". This can be brought about intentionally or merely because of the complainant's having limited experience. In my case, it probably did not occur to the reporting party in the heat of the moment that there can be more than one man with a beard in a place, and that they are all different people!
The arrival of the officer with such limited information is not of course his fault. He has to make do with what he was given.
There is currently a brouhaha about stereotyping of a black guy in Cambridge, Mass., whose door got stuck and who got the cops called on him by neighbors who saw him breaking into his own house. By the time the cops arrived, he had already gotten in, and he had taken on the notion that getting inside his house was like being on base in a tag game. Cops will follow a burglar into a building of course, and the homeowner took that as racial stereotyping, and the confrontation then escalated to the point the man was arrested. Comments by the thousands are on news reports of the event, and even Obama commented on it on TV last night.
To be fair though one must back up to consider what the parties to the confrontation knew at the time. The police have a tough job to do and their life can often be in danger, so out of concern for self-preservation they are apt to come on a bit rough. When they encounter an always law abiding citizen who hasn't had such a confrontation in years, if ever, that behavior comes off to him as so inappropriate as to be seen as way over the top. Amid these very different communications styles both parties face an uphill struggle to reach a conclusion which both actually regard as the best one of all - that the officer is not in danger and that the citizen is law abiding.
Demanding that the officer apologize for something he did not know at the time is inappropriate (that is what the Cambridge guy is doing). In my case in the end I did not fault the officer, but an apology from the idiot who gave him such a shoddy description would have been nice. However, it was not forthcoming.
Bill
Unfortunately, witness memories are often fairly scanty, and they'll only tell what few details stick in their mind. "He had a beard" may have been the only distinguishing feature that the witness remembered, just like "two black men at the door" was all the Cambridge cops got. To my mind, the witness in Cambridge wasn't necessarily accusing the people he/she had seen because they were black, but simply describing what had been seen.
It would be great if everyone had photographic memories to relay information with, but you work with what you have.
And yeah, it would have been better in your case if the officer had approached the situation a bit less confrontationally, but unfortunately confrontation is too often part of the job description.
Well my thought was not so much to actually have someone appologize...the cop said it was an honest mistake and he appologized of his own volition. I simply asked why.
The only reason I wanted to log a complaint...which was more a comment, was because he never actually asked more questions of the Bar staff pointed, and instead of asking, he assumed it was me.
Thats my only concern.
I'm not so sure, Bill. The way I heard it, he was arrested AFTER proving he was in his own house for 'tumultuous behaviour', whatever that is, based only on his getting annoyed with them. They should have let that go, if they'd any sense.
Obama commented because they were personal friends. I bet they were kicking themselves when they realised he was one of the president's buddies.
Keep in mind that every cop who has been at that job for long has heard the line from a burglar, "Dude, this is my house." For all the officer knows, one of the guys he's speaking to could be acting a certain way because someone has a gun pointed at the guy's wife's head upstairs. Or someone could be hiding and about to blow the officer away. To be sure that everyone leaves the scene living, the officers have to clear the house, and that means to leave it in a peaceful state. Who the suspects might know, be it Obama or anyone else, is not going to count for squat when weighed against the officer's concern about going home to his family that night.
Even if a burglar alarm is all that calls officers out, they will not leave until they've cleared the house. A homeowner could be saying "everything is okay" because someone is under threat. Anger at officers can be masking who knows what, they are not going to walk away from a scene with people still highly agitated, and it appeared to the officers in Cambridge, probably rightfully so, that before their eyes the agitation was not going to abate. Officers have a place equipped to cool people down - to handle this task. It is the holding cell at the city jail.
Whether one believes he is being profiled or not, hard as it may be, one must realize that peace officers are concerned with peace beyond all else. "Proving stuff", like "this is my house," will be left to judges to decide later if the scene is not peaceful.
Bill
AIUI, Dr. Gates produced his driver's license (which I assume had his address on it) and a card identifying him as a professor at Harvard University. What more could he have provided? Is a man's home not his castle anymore?
I mean, I know we all want to give the police the benefit of the doubt, not least because it's smart to give people with guns who can arrest you the benefit of the doubt. But it has to stop somewhere... :-/
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A calm demeanor so the cops could have sized up the situation. How would they know he didn't snatch the wallet off a tabletop? How would they know the "real burglars" weren't pointing a gun at his head from a cracked closet door? Only when everyone relaxes and a civil conversation is had, can an officer size up the situation.
More often than with police, law abiding citizens experience this situation when crossing the border. Officers at the border will engage you in conversation to get a feel for what your feelings are. The questions they ask may be inane and none of their business, but they often aren't even asking the questions for the purpose of collecting your answer. The banter serves the same purpose as small talk in a bar. You can tell if someone is okay or creepy in a bar because you have a lifetime of experience reading people by how they converse in relaxed conversation. Agitation blocks this process, and in that regard, police are no different than you or I are.
From a hot pursuit it never has been. Hot pursuit is not a game of tag or baseball. There are no bases when playing "hot pursuit". Police will chase you into your house. They will even chase you across the state line.
Bill
Fair enough. But not enough to be arrested for, surely.
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Yes, I'm familiar with this, even if only (!) crossing into Canada.
With all respect, I don't believe there was a "hot pursuit" here. I understand the officer was eventually backed up with SIX patrol cars; certainly that's escalating the situation, isn't it?
Interesting discussion on www.balloon-juice.com about all this, FWIW.
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A gray area for sure, but what matters is the cop thought it was. What he thought mattered at the time that was relevant because he was the one at that time with a gun. Later court arguments later won't help you much if you are by then dead.
It covered all the angles, although the discussion on brands of beer was TMI.
As longhaired guys, we're apt to attract more than our share of cop attention just like black guys are. This discussion has been good in that it points out we all need to think, at least, about how we'd handle unwanted attention. Hard as it may be, always be polite, be respectful, and above all be peaceful. If you have the facts different than they do, say so, but maintain that demeanor.
My biggest fear is being attacked by an angry cop or guard from the back. My hearing is very poor and it is almost impossible to attract my attention unless I already see you. I am old and I don't walk fast, and I am incapable of running, so it is easy to get into my vision, but cops and guards seem to always want to come at me from the back. Also, my peripheral vision to the rear is not as good as it might be for some people because my hair is always moving around back there, and in time I've come to ignore motion others might see.
My second biggest fear is that I will misunderstand them, so I always repeat back any questions they ask along with my answers, to make sure I am answering the questions they have asked.
Compared with those two fears, whether they like my hair or not is way down the list.
Bill
I agree with you and Bill on this one, Walter. In fact, I had a slightly similar experience w/ the cops about a year ago myself...
After working a particularly long day at my cooking job about a year and a half ago, I made the decision to pull off the road and park in a remote section of a Safeway store parking lot to take a brief nap before commuting back home. I was feeling dangerously sleepy, and didn't want to risk being behind the wheel until after I had at least a half-hour nap or so.
I had just removed my hair-tie and stretched out on the bench seat of my truck, when right about the time I started dozing off, a large, bright flashlight started coming towards my passenger side window.
"Please step outside of your truck, sir" was what I loudly heard next, --- along with me having to blink at the blinding-bright flashlight that shone directly in my face. I sat up, making a statement something like, "No problem."
"Do you have your vehicle registration with you?"
"Yes....." (I'm sure you can picture the rest of the conversation from there...)
To make a long story short, everything worked out fine in the end, --- I was not the guy they were looking for; but, my truck apparently fit the decription of a man that was stalking a woman that lived in the house nearby.
Interesting story, in the town that I live in there is apparently a "stop and identify" law. I have a friend who is growing his hair out like myself, and he is pulled over quite frequently by the city cops. He claims that one time the when he was pulled over he wasn't given a reason, and when he asked why he was pulled over the officer's response was, "Because you look like you have a warrant out for you." I wasn't there, but the last time I was in his vehicle with him and we were pulled over, they wanted all of our IDs, never mind that I was a passenger and did not commit any traffic violation. I have been nothing but respectful to police, but incidences like this and others that I have had really paint a bad portrait of a thin blue line. I firmly believe that "profiling" really is the politically correct term for prejudice, and that police are trained to stereotype is a tragedy for all of us who don't conform to the social norm.
I tend to agree. It was not about their decision, it was about their assumption.
If you don't complain, what's to stop them harassing other long hairs because of their quaint profiling ideas?
If you complain about bad treatment on MLHH and you don't complain about it to somebody who can actually do something about it, then you're the one to blame next time that it happens.
If you complain about bad treatment on MLHH and you don't complain about it to somebody who can actually do something about it, then you're the one to blame next time that it happens.
I have gotten mixed reviews. But I agree with both sides of the story. I posed this question here in order to get some oppinions on how you would all personaly handle it.
In the end, I called our local devision. I did not complain about how the officers did their job and how they eventually did get the scum, however I did let them know that he should have spoken more to the Bar Tender as he is the one who called the police, and that I did not appreciate being the one singled out, based on having long hair, or tattoos or peircings ot what not. (Those were all hidden)
Either way, I did not complain about the officer, but complained about the process.
I was questionned by police in DC after giving money to a homeless person. I think they thought I was buying drugs because of my hair. Make no mistake, they do profile us. I think the cops watch too much TV.
I blame the media for the way they portray us. Actors with long hair mostly only get bad guy roles, possibly as some sort of punishment for not having 'versatile' short hair. Watch some cops and robbers TV shows and see who has the long hair. Then think about what the cops watch when they are at home in front of the goggle box.
I have a few cops in the family and know a few across the street. and they will gladly tell you as much as profiling is vilified it does result in catching a lot of bad guys. Being a cop is not an easy job these days with sensitivities so high.
In the case of the professor I would suggest the officer as good a cop as he may be used poor judgment in this case. I would also suggest the professor could have remained calmer being a highly educated man.
To stop someone simply because they are black, yellow, orange, or have longhair is not acceptable in my eyes but I have no issue if they want to have a polite conversation with me asking a few questions in the course of doing their job.
The balance between keeping the community safe as possible and not offending people is extremely difficult. I don't envy the job they have to do. Then there's the fringe over zealous rookies who get carried away, that's a whole other discussion altogether for some other forum.
Kevin
I missed this. Damn it.