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gollygee

(22,336 posts)
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 08:28 AM Apr 2015

If you're white you're a customer, if you're black you're trespassing

I can only quote four paragraphs, but this is really disturbing. They talk about one African American man who was stopped 250 times for tresspassing at the place where he actually worked, and 60 of those times he ended up arrested.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/if-youre-white-youre-customer-if-youre-black-youre-trespassing

According to Grand Rapids police officials, the signed letter allows officers to stop and arrest people for trespassing at the business in question — even while the business is open — whenever the officer thinks the person is on the property without a “legitimate business purpose.” In other words, cops are given unrestricted discretion to decide who does and does not belong on the property of an open business, without ever talking to the business owner or any employee to find out why the person is on the property, how long they’ve been there, and whether the person is welcome on the premises.

Which raises the question: How can Grand Rapids patrol officers possibly know who is and is not a trespasser without first determining whether the business has authorized the person to be there?

The short answer is: They can’t. But if the business has a No Trespass Letter on file, police officers are given carte blanche to make that very judgment.

The results have been predictably disturbing.

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If you're white you're a customer, if you're black you're trespassing (Original Post) gollygee Apr 2015 OP
I think the ACLU JustAnotherGen Apr 2015 #1
. gollygee Apr 2015 #2
I''ll kick one more time for the evening crowd gollygee Apr 2015 #3

JustAnotherGen

(31,973 posts)
1. I think the ACLU
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 08:42 AM
Apr 2015

Would probably be happy to have this in its entirety here.


Under a policy similar to Grand Rapids’ No Trespass Letters, Miami Gardens’ police officers were given the discretion to identify individuals who they believed were trespassing on the property of open businesses as part of the department’s “Zero Tolerance Zone Trespassing” program. As detailed in a recent “This American Life” episode, it was African-Americans, yet again, who bore the brunt of the program’s implementation. Neither business patrons nor store employees were safe from Miami Gardens’ officers, who embarked on a terrifying and unnecessary trespass enforcement spree that contributed significantly to the roughly 99,000 total stops made by officers over the course of five years—in a city of only 110,000 people. One African-American man was stopped more than 250 times for suspected trespassing on the property of the convenience store where he worked. More than 60 of those stops resulted in his arrest.



ETA - Neither the Miami Gardens' nor the Grand Rapids' police departments should be shocked if their employers (the citizens of their communities) turn against them.
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