Police Profiling

Police Profiling: For Better or For Worse

     

      Police Profiling: some may say blatant prejudice while others would argue a valuable a necessary part of policing. Many non-officers will be quick to state that police profiling is blatantly wrong and even close to unconstitutional. On the other hand, long time officers, like many I know that are close to state that it is necessary to being a good cop and even staying safe on the streets. 

      Believing all cops profile is also, in itself, a generalization that does not always hold true.

 "Ronald Davis, police chief for Palo Alto, Calif., told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights on Tuesday, that racial profiling was “ineffective,” "insulting," and "just didn't work."

- CNSNews.com

      To play devils advocate, profiling can save the police a lot of time and in essence, money. After working for a while a police officer will begin to learn and react to certain trends that occur on a daily basis. For instance, if 7 out of 10 orange cars pulled over have a brick of cocaine in the trunk a police officer will recognize this. If the officer decided to start profiling they will begin only pulling orange cars over, and in essence, they will start to recover more illegal cocaine than ever before. This benefit is obvious for the simple reason that officers will now be far more productive and effective from taking very dangerous drugs off of the street. 

      An officer also needs to be very observant of those they encounter on the street. This is not fool proof, and once again I am using generalizations to illustrate an overall point. Officers should know what kind of individuals are most likely to be aggressive or armed. A simple example little people will argue with is drunk people. If police profile all drunk people as potentially dangerous they will be more cautious and ready to handle any fit of anger the individual may have. 

      Although some sort of point can be made for profiling in practice profiling can appear to be racist or prejudice against younger people. 

A personal experience: I was driving in a car with a friend who happened to be black. Whether this influenced what happened is hard to tell but a definite possibility. We were pulled over on college in the snow because my registration was 3 days expired. Of course, technically this is a valid reason for one to be pulled over. A second officer arrived behind our car before the first one got out and they approached the car from both sides. The officer asked if I was in a hurry and since I thought that he was hinting that I was speeding I said no. At this time he said ok good and opened my door and asked would i mind getting out. His wording may not have exactly been an order but his body positioning and tone didn't seem to give me much of a choice. Once I got out he considered it consent to search my car for marijuana and pat both me and the passenger down. He took ashes and some old cigarette butts and claimed them to be remnants of marijuana. I laughed and said no and eventually after 20 minutes we were allowed to be on our way.

      I know for a fact if we were professors we would not have been treated the same way. Being college students made the police act differently towards us which is blatant profiling.  One would also say that we were more likely to have been carrying something illegal than a family man but since i was not i did feel violated by the stereotype.

      This is also true for many African Americans in America especially in urban areas. Many believe this is what causes there to be a disproportional amount of African Americans in Prison.

All in all, if police can profile on attitude rather than race then it can be an effective tool. Unfortunately, we are all human and this is near impossible for most.

New Ways to Combat Street Crimes and Kidnappings

New ways to combat street crime and kidnappings over conventional beliefs.

Muggings and street crime are still commonplace in large cities. The general consensus and how people are taught to deal with street crime is to give away their possessions since the value of their life or bodily harm is much higher overall. I believe the strategy should be different however. Depending on size and gender this may be an issue but I think muggers would be forced to think twice if they faced a victim that fought back. Deterring street crime may have a situational connotation to it but if the perpetrator was viciously beaten every time they attempted to steal the power and fear would shift towards the victim. I don’t want people to get the wrong impression and that the public should take the law into their own hands. I am actually thinking that from an early age people should be taught to protect themselves. This does bring up issues. Muggers usually target elderly, smaller, or female victims. I think that people can have the advantage however. Pepper spray, tazers, and conceal carry would deter criminals. Technology has changed the way that society can protect them and in the same way it may be time to rethink how we think about fighting back. The following article shows that people who can defend themselves should. Justin, the man in the article handed over his money to his mugger, but the mugger still attacked him. The mugger’s weapon failed and Justin took him down using former training that he wouldn’t elaborate about.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/9261611-418/mugger-chooses-wrong-victim-ultimate-fighting-champ.html

The main issue is for people to recognize the fight and flight response. This stretches to kids fighting off their kidnappers

http://www.kidescape.org/about

Original thinking for Kids to avoid kidnapping is to run, hit, and scream. This instruction is very important, but it is not enough. Kids are now being taught a backup plan to ensure that they are not moved to a second location.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9tPo3TjkXg

The grip, dip, and spin are a newer way to teach kids to be persistent in fighting off their kidnappers. The video explains that the kidnappers are interested in a quick extraction with the child causing little harm. This psychological boosts gives the children power to fight back when nothing else work. The kidnapper will most likely give up after a struggle with the child due to unnecessary attention and more resistance than anticipated. 

Jon Burge

Jon Burge: When the Thin Blue Line Breaks

      Countless times we hear about police misconduct and brutality and consider it as something that goes with the territory of being human. There are bad doctors, lawyers, construction workers, and yes even cops. Yet, every once in a while a sensational story comes around that grabs everyone's attention. Jon Burge, an ex-Chicago police commander has been alleged in the torture and coerced confessions of numerous individuals during his days of a Chicago police officer from 1970 to about 1992. Jon was a cop in a very different time than today. In today's modern times one would hope that police are monitored and have much more checks and balances that would not allow torture to run rampant across the department.  The Chicago times quoted Anthony Holmes, a Gangster's Disciple, who spent 30 years in prison after confessing to Burge,

"He took the box and plugged it into the wall," said Holmes, an imposing figure with his hair pulled into a tiny bun and tattoos dotting his arms. "He put one wire on my ankle (shackles) and I assume he put the other one on my handcuffs... He said, 'N-----, you're going to tell me what I want to know Holmes said Burge subjected him to repeated shocks and suffocated him with plastic bags until he passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen, Holmes said. Again and again, he was revived and the torture began anew.

"He kept doing me like that, I didn't know if it was daytime, nighttime -- I just couldn't take it," Holmes said. "I was in a different world. All I know is that when he took the bag off, I'd say whatever he wanted me to say" 

- Chicago Tribune




      Maybe even more worrysome, Burge had been given multiple commendations while working for the Chicago Police Department. He was working out of the Pullman area headquarters when many of the claims of abuse started to come out. A specific case that garnered a lot of attention was the murder of two police officers by two African American gang members. Burge was working in the beat where this heinous crime took place. Chicago police officers were outraged and officers were calling for heads to role. Burge quickly took in suspects from the area. All of the suspects had gang affiliation and were black. This is where Burge reportedly used many tactics to receive a confession including burning genitalia on radiators and the use of a cattle prod. (shown)

                                                                             
     Burge was never convicted of any of the alleged tortures. Instead, recently Patrick Fitzgerald charged Burge with obstruction of justice and perjury. I guess you could consider it a form of problem oriented policing for finding one way to punish acts. In the end. burge was convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury.
     



      Jon Burge brought shame to many in the Chicago Police Department. One must wonder how much police culture and pressures influenced the behavior of many police during that time for I am sure Burge was not the only one. If anything future police can be happy that times and culture have changed where behavior like this is not tolerated under any circumstances.

References
http://jailjonburge.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/27/jon-burge-trial-police-to_n_592232.html

To be the arm of justice in an unjust world

I remember when teachers only threw erasers. Sometimes a classroom would get difficult to handle for the teacher in a desperate attempt to restore order to the class, a teacher from my high school would throw, more like toss, an eraser in the general vicinity of the source of the problem. This was a rare occurrence at that. No one ever got hurt, and no one was ever scared for their lives. Manuael Dillow has taken things to new, dangerous and highly unethical level. Dillow is a teacher at a vocational teacher in Virginia. The article (link provided below) isn’t exactly clear on what was going on in the class at the time but Mr. Dillow decided it was necessary to gather the students up in a line, and pull a “blank firing handgun” from his pants, and shot several shots in the direction of students. Now, I’m not quite certain what a “blank firing gun” is supposed to mean. Is it a real firearm that was modified to only shoot blanks? Is it a toy gun that shoots something more like a cap gun would? And another question: does it matter?

Schools are supposed to be the optimal learning environments. Teachers are supposed to be professional, courteous, understanding and patient. The true professional and successful teachers of this world should be among the highest paid individuals in the world in my opinion. They are charged with the duty and responsibility of shaping and molding young minds that will be tomorrow’s leaders so to speak. School is not supposed to be a place where students have to face life threatening situations that would forever mar their mental health.

Mr. Dillow has been charged with 12 separate class 6 felonies each punishable by a maximum of 5 years in prison. He has been released on a $20,000 bond. This incident happened in Abington Virginia, five years after the Virginia Tech shooting occurred.  Manuael Dillow is 60 years old and if he is convicted on all counts he will likely spend most of the rest of his natural life in prison. This situation raises questions in many areas for the education system in the country like who exactly are we hiring to essentially help raise our children? But more pertinent to our situation as criminal justice students, this situation raises questions about how to deal with these problems that seem to be happening more and more often in schools. This man had a fake gun and evidently had no intention of killing any students, but what is to stop the next teacher or student from bringing a real firearm to school with live ammunition?

This blog serves as a reminder to those currently in, and those aspiring to one day enter the criminal justice field. School shootings are happening several times a year now and are a very real threat that directly related to criminal justice and more specifically law enforcement. New types of training are constantly emerging to help law enforcement personnel deal with these tragedies in a more efficient way so as to ultimately minimize the devastating loss of life and other effects that come with school shootings. 

 Manuael Dillow

Article Source 

Children's Exposure to IPV and Other Family Violence

           Exposure to any form of intimate partner violence or other family violence can have various detrimental effects to children and is associated with a host of mental health effects that include symptoms of postraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety (Kitzman 2003). In addition, various research has supported the notion that exposure to serious IPV as a child can lead to offending as an adult later in life. However, despite the well documented negative effects that exposure to IPV can have on children, surprisingly little information is available about how often such exposure occurs in households in the United States. It is because of this lack of information that researchers from the OJJDP decided to conduct the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV). The NatSCEV is the most comprehensive nationwide survey of the incidence and prevalence of children's exposure to violence to date. The purpose of this research was to gain information that is important to determine the extent of the problem of exposure to IPV, assess if/what services are needed, and to establish a baseline for evaluating the progress of any future programs that become implemented.

           The most important and general finding from the NatSCEV is that children in the United States are exposed to unacceptable rates of violence in their homes and by their families. Researchers discovered through the data that roughly 1 in every 9 children were exposed to some form of family violence in the past year alone. In addition, 1 out of 15 children were exposed to IPV that occurred between their two parents/caregivers which are supposed to be their “role models”. That comes out to an alarming approximately 8.2 million kids in the United States that were exposed to family violence in 2008. The data in the survey also found that 1 in every 4 children was exposed to at least form of family violence in their lifetimes. This figure is also very disturbing. Most of the youth exposed to family violence that participated in the survey, including 90% that claimed to have been exposed to IPV, said that they saw the violence as opposed to hearing it or encountering it through any other form of indirect exposure. This is an important statistic due to the fact the direct exposure is the worst kind and could possibly have a greater deter-mental effect than indirect exposure. Not surprisingly, males were more likely to perpetrate the incidents that were witness than females. Males were identified as perpetrators in 78% of all IPV incidents and the most severe violence had the highest percent of male perpetrators (88%). The NatSCEV results found that 68% of the youth that participated in the survey claimed to have only witnesses violence by the males in their households. In addition, father figures were the most common perpetrator of family violence and IPV. They accounted for somewhere between 61% and 71% of all incidents that involved males. However, the survey also shows that assaults by mothers or other family members was also present. Mothers accounted for roughly 10% of incidents and other females comprised about 24%. The information form the survey on children's reaction to violence by one parent to another indicates that large numbers were not simply passive observers. Almost 50% of the youth yelled at their parents during a violent episode in order to get them to stop and 25% called for help from a outside source at least one time during the incident. In addition, almost identical figures were found in incidents that involved parental assaults on a sibling and violence between other household teens and adults (Strauss 1992).

             In conclusion, the data that was obtained through the research of the NatSCEV is of great importance due to the implications that it has for future policy makers and practitioners along with the fact that it should be able to open the eyes of United States families to just how prevalent children's exposure to violence in their households actually is.

Works Cited

1. Kitzmann, K.M., Gaylord, N., Holt A., and Kenny , E. 2003. Child witnesses to domestic violence: A meta-analysis review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71(2): 339-352
2. Straus, M.A., and Gelles, R.J. 1990. Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers

Ex-Bloomington Police officer found to be serial rapist

            When we think of police officer, we often associate them with the job of “to serve and protect.” But what happens when they are the complete opposite of protect and serve, what if they are in fact the person committing the crimes and harming other people? What is even more disturbing is that we hear about cruciate police, but we never think it is happening close to us. In 2005, even Bloomington/Normal got the realization that corrupt/cruciate police are everywhere, but the extent of the corruption was shocking to even the department.

            Jeffery Pelo had been an officer for seventeen years, a seemly devoted father of three and husband.  In 2008, at the age of forty-three, Jeff was found guilty on 35 counts, which included 28 counts of aggregated criminal sexual assault and a count attempted burglary for the rape of four women. Though there was limited physical evidence and no DNA evidence, there were other factors that lead to Jeff being convicted for the murder of those four women.

            What initially got the ball rolling in considering Jeff as a suspect was a 911 call made by Jonelle Galuska, who said she had been living in fear because she had felt she was being watched. That night she was awaken by her startled dog and then heard a loud urgent knock so she called the cops. Bloomington police officer Dave Zeamer responded to the call and at 1 a.m, upon arriving at the destination found a man standing up against the Jonelle’s house. When he flashed his flashlight, the intruder turned to walk away, and after being told to stop continued to try to flee, until the officer yelled again for him to stop. Once Jeff turned around Zeamer immediately recognized him from work. "You got that relief of, 'Oh, it's Pelo.' But then you are like, 'Wait a minute, it's Pelo. What's he doing out here?'" Zeamer said.

            Jeff was arrested and questioned, where he said that he was out looking the lake and house-hunting when he was spotted outside Jonelles home. The problem with that was that her home was not for sale and it was one in the morning, which is obviously not a good time to house-hunt for various reasons.  The four rapes occurred between 2002 and 2005, and the similarities were almost identical. Most victims described him and trying to being loving and gentle, almost boyfriend-like.  In all cases he wore a ski mask and gloves. All of the first three women said that he duck taped and zip-tied them and then put a pillowcase over their heads. After raping them, he would make them take a long soak in the bathtub and bathe themselves thoroughly while he cleared the house of any evidence, which included sheets, pillow cases, etc. Not only did this prove to be the work of a professional, but upon investigating Pelo other incriminating evidence was found.

Detectives found that Pelo's police computer had been used to run license plate searches on three of the victims. Though, Jeff Pelo denied having been the one to do it, claiming that someone else must have been using his computer terminal. Then a search of his home revealed a ski mask and jacket, in which the fibers on the ski mask were a match for those found on the duct tape used to bind one of the victims. He was also identified by three of the victims, despite the mask, and his voice by one victim. One victim commented, "When you're staring into those eyes and that's the only thing you can see and the only thing you can focus on, they stick with you."  An officer on the case remembered, “"Victims described how [the rapist] would pull some of the items around from his belt. You know, the gloves that they described were consistent with what police officers or security officers commonly wear.”

Jeffery Pelo is currently serving one of the longest sentences in Illinois. He was facing a minimum of life in prison and once found guilty on all counts sentenced to 440 years in prison.

 REFERENCES

AVILA, JIM, ALISON LYNN, and LAUREN PEARLE. "Police Sergeant Doubled as Serial Rapist." ABC News. ABC News Network, 19 Dec. 2008. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6467266>.

"Timeline of the Jeff Pelo Case." Http://www.pjstar.com. Journal Star, 18 June 2008. Web. 14 Apr. 2012. <http://www.pjstar.com/news/x833714097/Timeline-of-the-Jeff-Pelo-case>.

Smedley, Steve. "Ex-police Sergeant Convicted in 4 Rapes." USA Today. Gannett, 18 June 2008. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-18-ill-sgt_N.htm>.

Justice For Cisco

I would like to expand on a recent incident that I briefly mentioned in my last blog posting. Recently an Austin Police Officer that was responding to a domestic disturbance shot and killed a man's dog after responding to the wrong address. One of the owner's friends created a facebook page entitled "Justice for Cisco" and today it has over 100,000 followers. If you look at the picture below, you will note that it has only been little over a week since this incident occurred.



Many things pertaining to law enforcement have occurred because of this incident and the facebook page that has been created for it. First and foremost, a law enforcement officer shot and killed a dog while apprehending a man that wasn't even who he was looking for. Is this a normal error? The police officer responded to the wrong address, and these are the events that unfolded because of that. Man walks out of house, officer draws weapon, man leans obediantly against his car, dog comes running and barking from backyard, officer fires one shot, striking the dog in the chest and instantly killing him. What are the issues with this?

It is mentioned that the Chief of Police himself apologized to the dog's owner after a great amount of public outcry. The facebook page has generated a lot of positive support for the owner, but it has also generated a lot of negative feedback for the police department. In the news article addressing the issues of threats on the police department, the Chief mentions the death of a police officer on April the 6th. He explains that the whole department is still reeling from the death. I personally believe this is a negative way of responding to the issue. The underlying implications are that high nerves in the police department are what caused the incidental death. I don't think that is the proper way of responding to an outraged public about the death of a dog. Now, I do agree that a human death is very important, I'm not downplaying that. I just think there could have been a better way of speaking to an animal loving community on the issue.

The main point of my article is supposed to be about facebook and the type of postive/negative feedback it can fuel in certain circumstances. I feel for the man who lost his dog, and I also agree that the officer acted too harshly in shooting the animal. It didn't help his case that he had responded to the wrong house. The facebook page has generated so much publicity that the officer has been reprimanded, the department has received may threats from the public, and the owner has been all over the news because of this. Sad thing is, these types of incidents happen more often than you think, BUT because of facebook, thousands of people know, a department has been harrassed, and an officer has been reassigned because of the amount of attention the case is getting.

Sources:
http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_stories/284248/apd-reviews-policy-in-wake-of-dog-shooting
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/acevedo-vile-threats-aimed-at-apd
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/chief-apologizes-for-ciscos-death