Racial Profiling By Law Enforcement Essay

Racial profiling by law enforcement is commonly defined as “a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin” (“Racial Profiling”). Racial profiling can be done because of stereotypes like “Blacks and Hispanics are more prone to crime” (Niller). However, that doesn’t mean that is alright for officers to “stop and search people” (“The Problem”) or shoot them because they look agitated. The power to stop and search is given by the fourth amendment requires that the police have a “reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed before stopping a suspect. If the police reasonably suspect the person is armed and dangerous, they may conduct a frisk, a quick pat-down of the person’s outer clothing” (“reasonable suspicion”). This gives the power to the police to search, but it is also a concern for racial profiling. The officers can abuse their power to search someone just because they are a race that they don’t like

Cases like Michael Brown, shot 6 times by former police officer Darren Wilson have cause turmoil in the black community. Brown was unarmed when he was shot by an officer. There are many unknown facts over the case that people tend to deduct themselves. Some theories

Timothy Thomas whom had been cited for 21 violations, almost all of them for the exact same things “not wearing a seat belt or driving without a license throughout ‘the year”. When the officer was question he admitted to recognize Thomas as one of the people he ticketed. This show how he was racial profile into his death. When the officers saw Thomas they quickly thought he was trouble because he was walking by a nightclub alone at night. They chase him and Thomas got scared letting his survival instinct take over to