[DerbyCat]

Scuds, your story hits home - there isn't a cop on the street that doesn't *profile*, although it's not as racist as civilians make it out to be, I think it really is more socio-economic (and there are more poor minorities in big cities)... when I was going through FTO (field training) with the San Jose PD, I drove past a hispanic guy straddling a bike and talking with a guy who was drinking a beer in the driveway of the guys house (or so I assumed). My Training Officer asked me, "don't you think you should stop and talk to those guys?" I asked, "why should I?" His reply was, "a grown man wearing anything other that those silly tight riding shorts and riding an expensive bike is only riding a bike because he doesn't have a license. His license was probably suspended, maybe for a drug violation or maybe he has a warrant. Your PC (probable cause) for the stop is the guy drinking the beer in public." My reply to him was, "So, based on your logic, a cop would have reasonable cause to question my father who lives in Los Altos (an upper-middle class town in the Bay Area) for drinking a glass of wine in his yard while he was talking to the neighbor who was on his oldest son's bike because he was testing it out after repairing the chain." My T.O.'s reply was, "only if your Dad looks like a dirtbag."

Another time I stopped a black guy who was driving through a hispanic neighborhood known for drug sales. I never saw him stop or talk with anyone, he was just driving through in the middle of the day. My PC for the stop? Faded month tab on his license plate. I walked up to his car, explained my reason for the stop, explained that the neighborhood was known for drug activity and asked if I could search his car. He said he appreciated my polite request but he'd had enough cops search his car and they always tore it up and never found anything, so he was saying "no" to my request. I told him that without his approval (and without seeing anything illegal in plain sight in his car) I couldn't search his vehicle. I was back at my patrol writing a fix-it-ticket when a senior officer at the scene decided he didn't need permission so he walked up to the guy and told him, "I'm searching your car, move out of my way" and proceeded to trash the car - Result: no drugs found. Black guy drives away with a ticket and a messed up car, but he never complained to HQ, must have just figured it was a price for being "black in America".

These are just a few of the reasons why I'm no longer a cop.