Policing in Practice
EVIDENCE: DISCRIMINATORY POLICING PRACTICES
Policing is an important, demanding, and sometimes dangerous job. Citizens rely on police officers to protect the community, and police are given broad powers to carry out their duties. Officers are trained in the laws and how to enforce them.
Watch the following video, in which Jelani Cobb rides with the Newark PD’s gang enforcement unit. Like the rest of the police department, the “gang unit” is predominately black and Latino—as are most of the victims and suspects of crime. As you watch, think about how the officers answer Cobb’s question about how they decide to stop a person or do a field inquiry.
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JELANI COBB, Correspondent: The officers say they’re out here hunting for guns, drugs, and intelligence about gang rivalries.
OFFICER: You guys don’t know anything about the shootings going on down here?
MAN: I know nothing.
JELANI COBB: As they roll up on one of the worst streets in Newark, a guy starts running.
OFFICER: Hold on, we got him, we got him, we got him!
JELANI COBB: It’s just the start of a busy night—
OFFICER: Bunch of heroin, bricks, bunch of marijuana—
JELANI COBB: —one of many we spent with the unit.
OFFICER: See your hands. See your hands.
WOMAN: She lives here. They are my visitors.
OFFICER: [frisking man] Got something in your pants, man?
YOUNG MAN: No, sir.
JELANI COBB: I’m struck by what passes for normal out here.
YOUNG MAN: I don’t have nothing, sir.
OFFICER: I thought I felt something.
JELANI COBB: They call what they’re doing “field inquiries,” basically stopping and frisking.
[on camera] How does the decision get made to say, “Okay, we need to stop that person,” or “We need to do a field inquiry with that person”?
Det. RICARDO REILLO, Newark PD: You, as an officer, you eventually build certain skills. You start learning how to read people, their body language. If one person doesn’t want to take his hands out of his pockets, starts pulling away from you, starts walking away from you once he notices our police presence, obviously, if he starts running, [laughs] you know, there’s a reason behind it, usually.
Det. WILBERTO RUIZ, Newark PD: You know more or less—when you pass them and they give you that look, you know.
JELANI COBB: [voice-over] Cops are supposed to have what’s called reasonable suspicion to stop someone, not just a hunch. But that leaves room for discretion.
Ofc. CARLOS ALVARADO: We just want to make sure you’re all right.
Det. RICARDO REILLO: They respect us. We respect them. We treat them fair. We have a rapport with them. They know what we’re out here for, and they don’t give us—most of the time, they don’t give us no problems.
Take Notes
Jelani Cobb took many rides with police officers in his reporting. What do you think he saw in the ride shown in the video to make him say, “Cops are supposed to have what’s called reasonable suspicion to stop someone, not just a hunch”? You may use the video transcript to help explain your thinking.
