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Late as always, I recently came upon the story of an NYPD precinct in Brooklyn, where the commanding officer was taped repeatedly ordering his subordinates to either arrest or ticket American citizens for the sole purpose of juking statistics. That alone is bad enough. But in playing with the numbers, the officers inadvertently aided the rampage of a serial rapist in Bed-Stuy. You can listen to episode of This American Life, here. Or read about it in the Village Voice here.
I was really disturbed by this story. I’ve seen reports of stop and frisk and racial bias for months now and tuned them out. If blacks and Latinos commit most of the crimes, it stands to reason they’ll be overrepresented among the stop and frisks. Except that this isn’t about fighting crime. It’s about harassing the weak, in order to uphold the strong. I’m ashamed, now, that I ignored those reports.
via The Tyranny of Comstat – Ta-Nehisi Coates – National – The Atlantic.
Filed under: News
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