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You never hear "Armed robbery suspect description: white male." People would laugh at that description. But for some reason "black male" is considered a good enough description by many people.
In my city, you would hear "black male" or "white male". I don't understand why you would think otherwise? It is a description and I just don't understand U of Minn???? Odd.
In my city, you would hear "black male" or "white male". I don't understand why you would think otherwise? It is a description and I just don't understand U of Minn???? Odd.
Maybe it is because a large number of the Somalian population has come to Minnesota.
And a large number of them are going to the U of M.
And they have dark skin, black some might say.
Its just really infuriating. For PC purposes, the university is taking off a critical identifying element in crime suspect descriptions? How are people supposed to know "who to look out for?"
"A male student, 5'10," attacked a female jogger." How is that more helpful than a description that includes race/color, such as "dark-skinned male" or "white male" or "dark/light-skinned Hispanic male?" Who are people supposed to be looking out for as they go about their daily business? Expect fewer tips/hints/calls about suspect sightings to police and a lower crime solving rate as a result. This is a disaster waiting to happen, all in the name of PC.
Note, in my experience, when moves like this are made, its typically because most suspects listed in the named descriptions were black/Latino. The interesting thing is that when race is left off of suspect descriptions, I and others (due to experience with the matter) assume that the suspect is black or Hispanic. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times the local newspaper where I used to live (the majority black city of New Orleans) always included the race of the suspect when the suspect was white, but failed to include the race of the suspect when the suspect was black, which was FAR more frequent. And, note, because I was a student at the university whose police department was issuing many of the suspect reports per Federal education law requirements, I knew for a fact the race of the assailants that the newspaper conveniently left off. And, note, this isn't paranoia. New media types are pretty open about excluding race in suspect descriptions as a way to reduce stereotypes of black males, etc. Sadly, in the name of being PC, these news media types (apart from abandoning any journalistic ethics) are seriously endangering the community.
Last edited by prospectheightsresident; 03-01-2015 at 09:31 AM..
Its just really infuriating. For PC purposes, the university is taking off a critical identifying element in crime suspect descriptions? How are people supposed to know "who to look out for?"
"A male student, 5'10," attacked a female jogger." How is that more helpful than a description that includes race/color, such as "dark-skinned male" or "white male" or "dark/light-skinned Hispanic male?" Who are people supposed to be looking out for as they go about their daily business? Expect fewer tips/hints/calls about suspect sightings to police and a lower crime solving rate as a result. This is a disaster waiting to happen, all in the name of PC.
Note, in my experience, when moves like this are made, its typically because most suspects listed in the named descriptions were black/Latino. The interesting thing is that when race is left off of suspect descriptions, I and others (due to experience with the matter) assume that the suspect is black or Hispanic. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times the local newspaper where I used to live (the majority black city of New Orleans) always included the race of the suspect when the suspect was white, but failed to include the race of the suspect when the suspect was black, which was FAR more frequent. And, note, because I was a student at the university whose police department was issuing many of the suspect reports per Federal education law requirements, I knew for a fact the race of the assailants that the newspaper conveniently left off. And, note, this isn't paranoia. New media types are pretty open about excluding race in suspect descriptions as a way to reduce stereotypes of black males, etc. Sadly, in the name of being PC, these news media types (apart from abandoning any journalistic ethics) are seriously endangering the community.
Exactly what I think too.
If myself or my daughter etc was raped or attacked, I would be very angry if the person who did it got away due to lack of being able to state a FULL description of the person
Then of course this individual would be free to attack again, and most often they do.
Its just really infuriating. For PC purposes, the university is taking off a critical identifying element in crime suspect descriptions? How are people supposed to know "who to look out for?"
Who are people supposed to be looking out for as they go about their daily business? Expect fewer tips/hints/calls about suspect sightings to police and a lower crime solving rate as a result. This is a disaster waiting to happen, all in the name of PC.
Note, in my experience, when moves like this are made, its typically because most suspects listed in the named descriptions were black/Latino. The interesting thing is that when race is left off of suspect descriptions, I and others (due to experience with the matter) assume that the suspect is black or Hispanic. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times the local newspaper where I used to live (the majority black city of New Orleans) always included the race of the suspect when the suspect was white, but failed to include the race of the suspect when the suspect was black, which was FAR more frequent. And, note, because I was a student at the university whose police department was issuing many of the suspect reports per Federal education law requirements, I knew for a fact the race of the assailants that the newspaper conveniently left off. And, note, this isn't paranoia. New media types are pretty open about excluding race in suspect descriptions as a way to reduce stereotypes of black males, etc. Sadly, in the name of being PC, these news media types (apart from abandoning any journalistic ethics) are seriously endangering the community.
You didn't read the article, it's a shame since you wrote such a long post.... IF you have other identifying info, such as "5'10" male", then you CAN say black or white. What they are saying is if you saw so little of the person that you can't say if they were male or female or tall or short or wearing red or green, you can't say "but I think it was a black person" and then have an alert issued that says nothing more than "Be on the lookout for a black person".
This is not without merit, IMO. That Indian grandfather who was thrown to the ground and paralyzed was only approached by the police because a neighbor thought he was black and reported a "suspicious black male" on the block. Maybe if people were capable of telling the difference between Indian and Arab, black and hispanic, etc, etc, they wouldn't need rules like this.
If myself or my daughter etc was raped or attacked, I would be very angry if the person who did it got away due to lack of being able to state a FULL description of the person
Then of course this individual would be free to attack again, and most often they do.
plus, how in the hell are we s'pose to keep score?!
You didn't read the article, it's a shame since you wrote such a long post.... IF you have other identifying info, such as "5'10" male", then you CAN say black or white. What they are saying is if you saw so little of the person that you can't say if they were male or female or tall or short or wearing red or green, you can't say "but I think it was a black person" and then have an alert issued that says nothing more than "Be on the lookout for a black person".
This is not without merit, IMO. That Indian grandfather who was thrown to the ground and paralyzed was only approached by the police because a neighbor thought he was black and reported a "suspicious black male" on the block. Maybe if people were capable of telling the difference between Indian and Arab, black and hispanic, etc, etc, they wouldn't need rules like this.
Even if the policy applies where there aren't many other identifying features, I would still feel the same way for the same reasons. Indeed, if you know the race/color of the person who attacked you (doesn't matter if they are black, brown, white, etc.), why would you hold that back??? Is it really less helpful to report that "a female was attacked by a black male" vs. a "female was attacked by a male." At the end of the day, putting out as much as you can about the suspect's description is simply smart policing; you never know, what if the black or white suspect (or any other race) was one of only a handful of people who could possibly fit that description in a certain area at the time of the crime. As someone in the area/police around the time of the attack, this can be invaluable information, IF ONLY TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN people and narrow down the suspect pool. The police shouldn't be used to support some progressive, social experiment. This policy is BS and unjustifiable in my view.
And the Indian grandfather was approached because a neighbor reported suspicious activity (the neighbor didn't claim that the man was suspicious because he looked black, which would have made his report insufficient for the police to investigate). At the end of the day, though, that was information given to the dispatcher/police. I question whether we wouldn't have gotten a more detailed description released to the public had a crime occurred and the police actually interviewed the 911 caller for further detail.
Touching on the article specifically, it mentions:
Quote:
The solution that they announced yesterday: you can no longer identify a suspect using his race if not much is known about him or her.
What does "not much" entail as it relates to sufficient description for identification purposes? Again, such a broad, blanket policy is dangerous as it ignores that people are different and what may not seem significant to some may be significant to others in terms of narrowing down a suspect pool. The cops can't be everywhere at all times. Thus, they should release what they know to assist others who can possibly help them close a case.
Last edited by prospectheightsresident; 03-01-2015 at 10:46 AM..
Even if the policy applies where there aren't many other identifying features, I would still feel the same way for the same reasons. Indeed, if you know the race of the person who attacked you (doesn't matter if they are black, brown, white, etc.), why would you hold that back??? Is it really less helpful to report that "a female was attacked by a black male" vs. a "female was attacked by a male." At the end of the day, putting in as much as you can about the suspect's description is simply smart policing; you never know, what if the black or white suspect (or any other race) was one of only a handful of people who could possibly fit that description in a certain area at the time of the crime. As someone in the area/police around the time of the attack, this can be invaluable information, IF ONLY TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN people and narrow down the suspect pool. This policy is BS and unjustifiable in my view.
And the Indian grandfather was approached because a neighbor reported suspicious activity (the neighbor didn't claim that the man was suspicious because he looked black, which would have made his report insufficient for the police to investigate). At the end of the day, though, that was information given to the dispatcher/police. I question whether we wouldn't have gotten a more detailed description released to the public had a crime occurred and the police actually interviewed the 911 caller for further detail.
Apparently people are wrong enough times in describing race, that the city feels it is less helpful. See example I gave about the Indian grandfather. Suppose he had committed a crime? The city would have been seeking a black man based on that neighbor's description when it was an Indian man in reality. I don't think they did this to be PC or something, I think they did this because they found race description alone wasn't accurate enough of the time in people who hadn't had a really good look.. So now they're saying if you really didn't get enough of a look to give a helpful description, we're not going to not to put that limited and unconfirmed description of race alone out to the public, versus putting it out there anyway and sending people on wild goose chases.
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