Police look for black bank-robber. Meh, any black guy will do.

[DetlefK]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/25/1324522/--When-you-fit-the-description

Charles Belk left the restaurant to check the parking-meter. He was arrested on the spot for being a bank-robber.

Quote:
"Within an evening, I was wrongly arrested, locked up, denied a phone call, denied explanation of charges against me, denied ever being read my rights, denied being able to speak to my lawyer for a lengthy time, and denied being told that my car had been impounded…..All because I was mis-indentified as the wrong “tall, bald head, black male,” ... "fitting the description." "

Six hours later, after continuous pleading, the detective and the FBI-agent finally took a look at the security-footage. Charles Belk and the bank-robber were both tall, bald and black. And apart from that they looked obviously totally different. Ten minutes later Belk was released.

Quote:
"The sad thing is, prior to my freedom being taken from me for an easily proven crime I did not commit, I was walking back to my car, by myself, because I needed to check my parking meter, so that I wouldn’t get a ticket and break the law. In fact, if it wasn’t for a text message that I was responding to, I would have actually been running up LaCienega Blvd when the first Beverly Hills Police Officer approached me. Running!"

[Heidi]

1. Kick!

[Kalidurga]

2. and if they don't spot a black guy

a woman with four children works just fine as well.

[mercuryblues]

3. A black

woman will do in a pinch.

FORNEY, TX (WFAA/CNN) - A mother said police pulled her over and handcuffed her at gunpoint while her four children were in the car because they mistook her for a suspect waving a gun out the window.

Forney police said they were responding to the call and thought the woman's car was the one they were looking for.

Soon after Kametra Barbour exited her car with her hands up and was cuffed, her 6-year-old son Ryan came out with his hands up, too.

"Makes me angry all over again," Barbour said.

It started with this 911 call-and a very clear description of a vehicle speeding down the highway, the driver waving a gun out the window.

According to audio from the 911 call, the suspect's vehicle was described as a tan-colored Toyota carrying four black males.

"I drive a Nissan Maxima that is burgundy red," Barbour said.

http://www.kltv.com/story/26354882/woman-with-4-kids-in-car-mistakenly-arrested-at-gunpoint

[heaven05]

4. Post racial, color blind Amerikkka

21st century. Ain't it grand???!!!!

[ReRe]

5. It was a false accusation...

... and the falsely accused should have recourse. We hear of opportunists all the time taking advantage of the system, of falsely accusing someone or another of crime against them. They are found out and held accountable. Cops have fucking gone wild in this country, and it's about time the Justice Dept reined them in.

And since most old dogs can't learn new tricks, maybe we should just retrain and hire a whole country's worth of new Law Enforcement Agencies/Policemen.

Aren't they one of us? Or are they, indeed, above the law.

Hell, not only false accusation, but harassment!

[thesquanderer]

6. One more rule for black males

Unless you're on a sports field, DON'T RUN!

[sakabatou]

7. Already posted this earlier

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025439486

[kmlisle]

8. Are law suits possible for these actions?

I know a fellow protester of the Iraq war was harassed and jailed illegally by local city cops and it cost the city 12,000$ in court fees and payments to said protester. The legal work was done by the ACLU. City police have been very polite ever sense (not so much the sherif's dept).

Seems like there is a lot of opportunity out there for just such

[glowing]

9. It's so F'd up that they even brought him downtown....

Did the cops really think they'd be lucky enough to run into the robber not all that far from the scene? The logic all the way through the entire process he went through in the entire 6 hrs he was in captivity by the police. No phone call to a lawyer. No explanation as what he was arrested for. No Miranda rights read to him. AND no one who could actually check the video tape of the "suspect" to verify the police had the right person.

At some point over the 6hrs, they had to have put his name into the system to realize the man had no criminal history at all. AND perhaps they could have even done a google search of who he was. I think its pretty clear that another bald, black male of any kind that the police had come across in that area would have been picked up in the same manner. AND had it been someone who had any type of previous criminal record in his past, they would have been convincing an innocent man to plead guilty for a lighter sentence, and without anyone but a public defender who would spend 5 seconds with the client and probably not bother asking for a security tape check, would tell the client to take the deal of serving a year, rather than not guilty and going to jail for 10yrs. It's clear that Mr. Belk realizes just how lucky it was him who the cops stopped and not another bald, black male. Clearly, the police and justice system needs a deep scrubbing and immediate overhaul in how they treat people and in how they interact with the public; especially minority persons who they clearly see as "suspects" for just walking down the road to put money into a meter so he doesn't break a simple parking violation law... Most of us wouldn't even had bothered to do that at 5:30pm.. Not a lot of meter readers out and about in the evening hours to write up tickets and a ticket normally costs a few extra bucks anyway.

I think its time we really start demanding that our police are reigned in. It's getting out of control. AND these instances are happening with white people as well. There have been shootings of white people and false arrests and just out of control responses and reactions toward white people as well; its just that white people aren't normally targeted as an immediate suspect or "up to no good"... We really need to be asking what it is our cops are doing, reviewing their policies, and demanding they start "serving and protecting" the citizens; not viewing them as the enemy who aren't allowed to ask questions or know what's going on. I think its particularly nerving that the cops are allowed to lie and do lie when questioning any suspects. If you think about lying to them, its a charge against you.

[pipi_k]

10. A lot of this sort of thing

could be avoided if people could/would be more specific with regards to skin color.

If the police are looking for a very light skinned black man, then they're not going to waste their time stopping very dark skinned black men.

Or we could even talk about white men. There are varying degrees of "whiteness", and again, if a tanned white guy robs a store, police aren't going to be looking for guys who look like Johnny Winter.

Unfortunately, this only proves how unreliable a lot of eyewitness evidence is.

[DetlefK]

11. A TV-show conducted an experiment on that.

They placed two cars at the edge of an intersection. They just parked them right in the curve. One car had a damaged rear, the other one a damaged front. Then they waited a while. Then they played screeching tires and a loud bump on hidden loudspeakers and suddenly all pedestrians looked at the cars. People from the show asked some pedestrians whether they had witnessed the crash and yes, some people had seen something that never happened.

[pipi_k]

13. Discouraging

and depressing.

Especially when we think of all the people who have been arrested, convicted, and even executed solely on the basis of "eyewitness" testimony.

I mean, it's one thing to actually see something and get the details muddled.

Whole 'nother ballgame to totally fabricate something they never even saw.

So what happened during the show...did the producers eventually tell those "witnesses" that no crash ever happened?

[DetlefK]

15. I don't remember.

[951-Riverside]

12. This has been going on for decades.

If you're shocked by this then you've been living in a suburban bubble.

In Los Angeles if someone runs from the cops or there is a major crime they'll snatch up the closest minority they can find, charge them with whatever crime then throw them in jail where they'll remain in jail for months until trial because the bail is so high.

The same goes with Hispanics who happen to have the same name as a wanted felon or someone with warrants.

Fortunately for this guy the detective and FBI agent were interested in clearing his name, most arent and will go along with the program.

From article:

Charles Belk, a graduate of Hillside High School in Durham, North Carolina, completed his BS degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California and received an MBA from Indiana University and a Executive Management Certificate from Harvard University School of Business.

Every time this comes up people feel compelled to list their "accomplishments" and it sends a message that its okay to do this to the poor and less educated. It doesnt matter if he is a high school dropout or a Yale graduate IT IS NEVER OKAY.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. I would highly recommend watching the documentary "Murder on a Sunday Morning"

It's about a murder trial in Florida of a black 15 year old teenager named Brenton Butler.

An out of town visitor was murdered outside her hotel room in an armed robbery. Police came to the area, got a vague description from the victim's husband as the shooter being a young black male, and started scouring the area. They see Butler walking down the street (he was on his way to apply for a job at a video store), stop him and immediately take him to the police station for questioning. They then show him to the victim's husband (who saw the shooter for no more than a split second) and he was supposedly identified as the murderer.

The police (including the son of the then sheriff) take Butler out of the police station and beat him. They then bring him back and make him sign a confession of murder while one of the deputies has an unholstered gun in his hand.

Thankfully, Butler's public defender works steadfastly at trial to bring up all the logical flaws and inconsistencies in the case against Butler, and notes the bruises on Butler's bodies that appeared after he was arrested. It only takes 45 minutes for the jury to acquit Butler.

Shortly after Butler's acquittal, the police receive a tip about another individual, Juan Curtis, who had apparently confessed to the murder. Fingerprint analysis conclusively proves Curtis was in fact the culprit. They show a picture of Curtis at the end of the movie. He's about a foot taller than Butler and looks to be about 10 years older. The only thing that is in any way similar between the two is the color of their skin.

The movie won an Oscar for best documentary, and for good reason.