Commentary on Profiling

[claypool4prez]

Here is one I wrote about getting busted on the way to Bonnaroo, while on assignment for The Appalachian Newspaper. Needless to say they fired me, and this is the last piece I wrote for them...

Profiling based solely on morality
Thursday, 20 July 2006
by MIKE COOPER

For the better part of my life I’ve stereotyped low level law enforcement as uneducated, biased scum out to get the children of their classmates, who used to poke fun at them for being poor.

It’s true in some circumstances here locally.

It isn’t universally true, and I apologize for profiling, because I recently discovered the unwarranted prejudice it can spawn.

A month ago, a group of students from Appalachian State University, including yours truly, trekked across the barren wasteland that is rural Tennessee to a certain music festival.

The trip was going well, making good time and the natives were friendly during every stop.

Then, however, we passed through a particular town, only minutes from our destination.

After not seeing any signs of police for ages we suddenly passed one, then another and then another.

They were everywhere, parked on the side of the road, driving past. You name it.

A bit of overkill, one might say, for a community so minuscule that some residents are unaware of its existence.

We had counted double digit patrol cars before leaving the district, within eye sight of the county line.

They obviously knew their town was on the path to the nation’s largest summer rock gathering.

We posed no threat however, and didn’t dare pull over for gas or such.

The cops had done their job of shielding the town from “wild hippies on an LSD binge” but prevented any possible boost to the local economy.

Brilliance at it’s best. This was Bush country after all.

Sighs of relief were breathed.

We had escaped the Stalinesque crackdown. Or so we thought.

All of a sudden an unmarked car pulled around behind and those brutal flashing lights came out.

I quickly explained to the lieutenant that the person I was following “too closely” was a compatriot. That should have been it, I should have been free to go.

Who would have thought the cops would see it otherwise?

Once they noticed the camping equipment we stood no chance, they stalled and five more police cars pull up.

They stalled some more and tried to write me a ticket for not having my insurance, which was printed on the registration in front of their noses.

It took an hour from the moment I pulled over to the moment the K-9 unit arrived, justice served the American way.

I’m not mad at the individual officers nonetheless.

The gang wasn’t on some power trip.

They weren’t happy upon finding something in the vehicle, and throughout the whole experience were exceedingly polite.

I nearly wanted to get my picture taken with the cops, my citation and the mutt.

See, you have to realize that these are merely ordinary guys doing their job, like everyone else.

They cut corners like we do. Dirty little corners the ACLU despise, in order to get it done.

Dirty Harry, Jason McCullogh and Eugene Tackleberry would have been proud.

But why was the first question blurted out so blatant that they might as well of said “I know where you’re headed and don’t approve.”

My criminal record was emptier than MC Hammer’s bank account. Still, the “popo” had their “cause” for wasting an hour and a half for the dog, a beautiful Belgian Malinois, to show up and search us.

It turned out that our journey had brought us through a Jehovah Witness settlement, and fundamentalist aren’t big fans of the “rock music.”

It could have been Elvis headlining instead of Radiohead, didn’t matter. They were out to protect and if possible affect those who had strayed from God’s path.

When you’re one of the 80,000 fans that flock to middle of nowhere for a week of wine and song you take an unspoken oath that your life is now in your hands, and your hands alone.

You learn to accept it. A couple of deaths over the years considering the duration of the event, the amount of people and the nature of the characters present are inevitable.

Approximately 50 citizens kick the bucket every day in this grand nation as a result of drunk driving. That’s a plane crash every week.

That stat beer bongs any amount of lives lost during a music festival ever

So after a football game, where a majority of the crowd is going to be intoxicated, many under aged, does that same law enforcement unit stop every SUV with a “T” on the back?

Nope.

And the reason?

Profiling based solely on morality.

And we’re trying to install Democracy in the Middle East, yeah right.

[Kutjara]

1. Great article!

You hit the central problem of profiling squarely on the head: the profilers will inevitably infuse their own biases into any profile they create.

Even if they think they don't, by using 'scientific' profiling based on group behavior, they will still make Type 1 and Type 2 errors (including those who should be excluded and vice versa).

No attempt to select from populations can be foolproof and it only takes one mistake to let a 'mad bomber' through, so the only way to be sure is to apply a foolproof test to everyone equally, and that is commercially unacceptable to airlines.

What we will probably have to accept is the larger-world equivalent of your handful of dead concertgoers: a few hundred or thousand of us will be killed every year in some 'terrorist' attack. Given that we accept that number of fatalities readily in the pursuit of driving, shooting, skiing and bearing children (to name just a few dangerous sports), maybe we need to accept terrorism as just another price of freedom.

As long as we get our freedoms back, of course.

[Demeter]

2. Conversion At the Point of a Gun

Those Whacky Religious Idiots! What will they think of next?

So, are you going to try to sue?

[claypool4prez]

3. Got it thrown out

Of course I had to go back to tenn., get a hotel room, a couple meals, and then court cost. So they got what they wanted even if the thing was dismissed.