Stop Overpolicing
“The practice of racial profiling grows from a trio of very tangible sources…. The sources include the difficulty in policing victimless crimes in general and the resulting need for intrusive police techniques; the greater relevancy of this difficulty given the intensification of the drug war since the 1980s; and the additional incentive that asset forfeiture laws give police forces to seize money and property from suspects.”
GENE CALLAHAN AND WILLIAM ANDERSON
“THE ROOTS OF RACIAL PROFILING”
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001
ON JULY 6, 2016, Philando Castile was fatally shot during a traffic stop in suburban Minnesota when a police officer freaked out over Castile’s legally carried concealed firearm. While activists and the general public reasonably focus on the senseless tragedy that day, that stop was at least the 46th time Castile had been pulled over in the previous 13 years. There is little reason to believe Castile was a particularly bad or dangerous driver. He was cited once for exceeding the posted speed limit and once for running a stop sign; three other stops were for more ambiguous moving violations, according to an NPR investigation published after his death. It seems, instead, that
