Week 5

Hide Assignment Information Instructions Hi everyone, and welcome to Week# 5, Chapter # 4, Cross-Cultural Communication of Law Enforcement: Students, please read the following newspaper excerpt and respond to the questions at the end of the passage, assuming the police chief’s role in the Police Department of the passage you will read. Please note that this police department has a long-standing issue of displaying racial issues toward the community they have policed for years. Please answer all the questions at the bottom of the excerpt in one essay addressing all the questions. (Please do not create a fundamental problem and answer-type response.) Please make one essay responding to all the questions below. On the subject of racial profiling, the following is an excerpt from an “ad” that appeared in a newspaper (“What would you do if you saw this man riding a bike through your neighborhood?” Source: Sonoma Index-Tribune, June 12, 1992, p. A-13; reprinted with permission). It is an excellent case study and contains appropriate content for discussion. The article’s date has no bearing on its relevance to today’s racial issues in law enforcement. Assignment: Students, please read the excerpts below and discuss how YOU, THE STUDENT, would respond, as management in the police department mentioned in the excerpt. On Friday evening, just before Memorial Day weekend, my car…died. Despite all my CPR skills, it refused to be resuscitated. Five years ago, I bought two bicycles from Toys’ R Us. They were sold disassembled in boxes, and I assembled them into good-looking, cheap bicycles worth about $80.00 each. On this memorable Friday, with a dead car, it seemed the perfect opportunity to ride one of my bicycles from my home to my office on Broadway. It was around 9:25 P.M. A Sonoma (California) police car approached me slowly from behind and forced me to stop. “Your bicycle has no lights.” “Yes.” “Do you have a bicycle license?” “NO!” “What kind of license is that? And is it really necessary?” “Yes, and I’m going to write you a fix-it ticket.” “Thank you, officer.” I was starting to doubt my understanding of how this country works…And then the bombshell. “Before you leave, I need to check if this bicycle is stolen.” I suddenly remembered that every time the Sonoma police stopped me (it happens very regularly and usually for no reason that I can think of), the last question is generally whether I had been stealing from the businesses on Broadway. Should I really believe that this police behavior has a logical pattern, and do I fit some profile? The police computer operator came online. “The bicycle was stolen from Santa Clara County. Both the description (black and gray), the brand name (Night Moves), and the serial number X3647600 fit.” I turned dark blue, then yellow, and I suddenly started glowing in the dark: I became allergic to my clothes, my body started emitting heat waves, and I felt I was going to throw up. “But, officer, I bought this bike as a kit in a box from Toys’ R Us in Santa Rosa. How can it be stolen? Did Toys R Us steal the bike and then sell it to me five years ago?” Another police car slowly approached, and a police officer stepped out. I recognized him. He stopped me two years ago on Broadway for no reason, looked in my car, and asked me if I had been stealing. The new police car stood there. I don’t think he remembers the indignities he had inflicted on me. The voice of the police computer operator: “Confiscate the bike; it is stolen.” I managed to belt out my famous signature laugh: monstrously big and, for the circumstances, perfectly disharmonious. “Here is the bike; it is all yours.” My wife was away for the weekend; her car was at the SF airport, and I had a deadline to finish a software program by Tuesday afternoon. I had three days to prove that I was not a thief. “Your bike is confiscated until you can prove you did not steal it.” …Sunday afternoon: “Hello, Toys R Us? You stole a bike, and then you sold it to me. I am about to go to jail. Can you help me?” “I’ll transfer you to the manager…” After two days of searching for my records, I found the sales record, but it didn’t contain the bike’s serial number. They showed that I bought merchandise worth $162.00 from Toys’ R Us on a particular date. I still couldn’t shake this criminal personality that the police had caged me into. Tuesday morning, I was still a suspected thief. The bike was still warehoused at the Sonoma Police Department as stolen merchandise. My wife was back. I had to confess to her that I was a sleepwalking thief. She lent me her car. I drove to the Sonoma police department. I had sales records, telephone numbers, character references, a birth certificate, a teddy bear (just in case I needed comfort), and the best jeans. How did this happen? My name is Antoine. I received the best education money can buy in Europe. I am a software engineer by profession. I own a software company in Sunnyvale. For the last five years, I’ve enjoyed a peaceful and happy life in Sonoma…..I love Sonoma, the food, the wine, the people. BUT HOW DID I BECOME A BICYCLE THIEF? The police computer recorded the number of a stolen bicycle instead of the serial number. The police officer who stopped me decided that the model number of the bike was the serial number. As of today, if you have a “Night Moves” bike by Murray, you can be arrested for stealing it from Santa Clara County. The police officer spent two more hours trying to find out if the manufacturer shipped these bicycles to Toys R Us in Santa Rosa. I am no longer a thief; for the time being, it is documented on a piece of paper the police gave me. I do not have a criminal record, but a case number. Some of my friends say that any Black person is automatically considered a thief, a violent person, possibly a drug addict, or a drug dealer. They ought to know; they are all white. I do not believe any of this; however, I do not understand why all of these things are happening to me regularly. If you know me, please call the Sonoma Police Department and tell them that I AM NOT A CROOK. Questions: (PLEASE CREATE ONE ESSAY THAT WILL ADDRESS ALL QUESTIONS BELOW BASED ON THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNED READING, AND POSSIBLY SOME OF OUR PREVIOUS ASSIGNED READING). What should the next steps be for a police department chief (student) in this scenario? 1. How should the police department chief (which is you, the student) communicate to the individual citizen who has been wrongly accused, if at all? 2. Should the police officer who conducts a stolen property inquiry and provides incorrect information to dispatch be reprimanded? 3. Should the police department chief share the incident with the entire community and attempt to see if it was an isolated incident or a systemic issue? 4. Should the police chief mandate racial and ethical sensitivity training for all its police department members? 5. Does this article impact your thoughts or emotions toward police officers in general?