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Seen recently was a scene in which one car was pulled over with a single African American male in the driver’s seat.  Behind him were 4 police cruisers with roughly 8 officers.  This raises a question of how many officers it takes to pull someone over?  It also raises serious issues about whether the days of people being pulled over for DWB are gone.

Certainly, it’s possible that the person being pulled over could have been a dangerous wanted felon.  Certainly the car could have been stolen or have been part of a crime scene.  There might have been people who were not the driver who were in custody that we could not see.  Officers also have an absolute right to take all safety precautions to ensure their safety.

However, it often seems as though more African Americans are pulled over than non-African Americans and while African Americans are a majority in the city, they are not in the region.  It also seems as though more officers are needed when an African American is pulled over.

The question is whether these perceptions are accurate.  If so, why do police officers feel the need for such large numbers when pulling over African Americans?  If they are not, why does it look this way?

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2005 at 10:24 am and is filed under Looking Toward the Future. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.