Read the example below Concerning: Stereotypes or Terry Stop” example and tell me what you think
In no less than 250 words
.✔“Stereotyping or Terry Stop” Example ?
No matter how controversial policing is today, one common thread is that citizens want police
to be proactive, not reactive to violent crime. Whether it is stopping
an active shooter in a school, a burglary, or even a robbery,
proactivity in policing is necessary to halt horrendous crimes from
occurring. In 1968 the United States Supreme Court decided Terry v.
Ohio, which further explained reasonable searches under the 4th
amendment and played a vital role in the below story.
I was one of six officers with my department, chosen to work in our
first ever problem-solving unit (PSU). Our substation was placed in a
neighborhood where 21 murders had occurred in just a few months. We were
tasked with being proactive and working with the community to stop the
bloodshed. The two-mile radius neighborhood were composed predominantly
of minority residents, and their distrust of our presence was apparent
immediately. The residents had stereotyped us as rotten apple police
officers and at first, did not want our assistance, they did not trust
us. This was further agitated by the fact that we were there to be
proactive and stop any future murders from occurring. Plus, we had the
Terry v. Ohio decision to assist with our proactive actions. The
citizens did not understand what that meant. They also did not
understand that as one of the officers pledged to protect the area, I
was feeling like an unwanted officer in their neighborhood. They did not
know that I got into policing to change the world, if even just a
little. They did not know how frustrated it made me feel when no matter
how hard I tried, no one would not trust me. One day, as a four-year-old
child approached me for a police sticker, the mom grabbed the child by
the arm and said, “Get away from that Po-Po, she is a Bi***, and don’t
you dare talk to her, ever, or you’ll get it!” I cried that night when I
got home from work, wondering how I could help this neighborhood if I
couldn’t even get one mom to trust me? Whether or not it was true,
stereotyping had occurred in this neighborhood. Then on top of it, I had
to utilize the Terry v. Ohio decision to be proactive, to keep the
murders from occurring. It felt like a Catch-22 with no solution. The
answer did not come to me instantly. All I could think to do was my job
and stop the murders (as I was directed to do). I remembered that
four-year-old in my everyday actions. I knew my efforts could make him
safer, but would he ever understand? I utilized Terry v. Ohio, by
learning the neighborhood, recognizing the residents, and learning who
belonged, and who did not. I was either on foot or on a bicycle in this
neighborhood due to the small size. This allowed for a lot of
interaction with the residents. If I had reasonable suspicion to think a
citizen was about to commit a crime or had evidence of a crime, Terry
v. Ohio gave me the right to investigate further. At first, this angered
the neighborhood. They felt we were harassing them, stereotyping them. I
could understand how they felt that way, and instead of trying to make
this neighborhood safe overnight, I decided to begin to change how the
neighborhood perceived us, slowly. The way I did this was through
education. Through my daily interactions, I talked to the citizens in
the neighborhood about what I was doing and why. Instead of speaking in
‘general’ I spoke about only one incident at a time.
One night, at 2:00 a.m., I was walking with my partner through the
neighborhood. I had to head back to the sub-station and as I rounded one
building, I saw two citizens looking through a window of an apartment. I
stopped and just watched. Everything ran through my mind. Had they lost
their keys? Was this their apartment? Or, were they looking to break-in
and burglarize the apartment, possibly even commit a home invasion and
hurt those inside? All of this happened in seconds, not minutes. Because
of Terry v. Ohio, I legally investigated. The two citizens did not live
in the apartment and they were trying to burglarize it. One of the
suspects had a gun. Because of Terry v. Ohio, I was able to be
pro-active and stop this from occurring. A single mom and three children
under six years of age lived in that apartment and were home. The mom
did not trust banks and kept her savings in between her mattresses. I do
not know what I stopped that night. I do not know if the suspects would
have used the gun, or if they would have found the mom’s large cash
savings or what else they might have taken; however, I did stop a
burglary from occurring and that felt good. The next day while speaking
to some of the citizens in the neighborhood, I explained this. I used
this one example to explain why my unit was there. How we stopped this
crime and how we all wanted to make a difference. This one story did not
change how the neighborhood saw us; however, after many more stories
such as this, I began to see a change.
Michelle, one of the citizens in the neighborhood got my cellular
telephone number (yes we had cell phones back in the day!). She began
calling me when she heard talk about a possible crime occurring. We
hosted many events in the neighborhood as well. From ice cream socials,
back-to-school fairs, and we even worked hard to find donations and get
every child in the neighborhood a bicycle (or scooter). After three
years, our substation closed. We had gone a year without a murder and
the crime rate dropped 98%. To this day Michelle still calls me and we
chat about what is currently occurring in our lives. Michelle is my
friend and I dare say I think she thinks of me as her friend too. There
was a lot of stereotyping that went on in that neighborhood during those
years. I found my way through it all and I think the neighborhood did
as well. In the end, we worked together through good ole community
policing and made the area safe again.✔
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