Dearborn, Mich., Arabs Cited More Often

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=6&u=/ap/20031120/ap_on_re_us/arabs_citations


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DEARBORN, Mich. - The number of Middle Easterners cited for offenses in this heavily Arab community has risen nearly 10 percent since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, while charges against all others have fallen nearly 7 percent, according to a newspaper analysis.



City officials said changes in law enforcement procedures, not discrimination, led to the change.


The Detroit News analyzed 100,000 district court records for a story in Thursday editions. It matched names in the records to a list of Arab or Muslim surnames complied by polling company Zogby International; the analysis did not account for people who had changed their names because of marriage or other reasons.


Housing, zoning and other residential-ordinance violations accounted for the biggest increase, the records showed.

the standards for traffic stops. Basically, if the police wants to stop a car, any car, all they have to do is follow it for a few miles. Eventually the driver will do something wrong, i.e. forget to put on a turn blinker for 3 seconds before changing lanes. Then the police can make a valid traffic stop and start fishing. If he finds something as simple as a suspended license, he then has probable cause to search the vehicle. This is Scalia's contribution to the court. The legal standard for police discretion is not if he SHOULD search or arrest, but if he COULD search or arrest.

This kind of profiling is the reason why arrest statistics show that there are more minorities caught in the system than whites. Not too surprisingly, arrest statistics are skewed, and yet, arrest statistics are used to justify the continuation of racial profiling.

past time of harrassing black people. Dearborn cops have a reputation-most black parents I know tell their kids never go to Dearborn without an adult present, don't shop at Fairlane, don't speed on Michigan AVE, even by a couple mph. They can only harrass arabs so much, arabs make up at least 30% of Dearborn's population. They are a powerful voting block that mostly votes republican, or at least did vote republican. We'll see in 2004.

Unless it's the feds doing the arresting in Dearborn-if they are cracking down on immigration violations or something. I know there have been a couple of high profile terror-related cases out of the Dearborn/Southwest Detroit area.