Granted. However, I do not want to be pulled over just because I am white in a bad part of town (or black in a good side of town). That is wrong no matter what you call it and no matter how effective one thinks it is. The law states that there must be a valid reason for an LEO to pull someone over. It is good advice for LEO to follow the law they are sworn to uphold.
Soldier from Texas imprisoned in Mexico for weapons charges
- Thread starter FireMax
- Start date
Granted. However, I do not want to be pulled over just because I am white in a bad part of town (or black in a good side of town). That is wrong no matter what you call it and no matter how effective one thinks it is. The law states that there must be a valid reason for an LEO to pull someone over. It is good advice for LEO to follow the law they are sworn to uphold.
Playboypenguin
Moderator
It really doesn't matter what you "want"...if you are doing somethig suspicious in a suspicious place you deserve to be checked out.
There is nothing "wrong" about it. Should police ignore someone casing a home up until the moment they break in? Or should they ignore a man in a ski mask walking into a mall in the middle of summer or should they check it out?
WINSTON THE WOLF
Moderator
Maybe he was looking to get his ...er chili wet
I thought most white serial killers. Put bodies in the fridge?
Playboypenguin
Moderator
Really??? Is that the best you can come up with? You should really not just post the first thing that comes into your head. It is embarrassing.
I was unaware of the fact that gay men controlled the cocaine industry.
Damn your impenetrable witticisms!
I now realize that it is totally impossible for you to consider yourself on the other end of these policies. You just can't do it, despite the fact that it is likely to happen and has probably already happened to you, for that matter.
I was only trying to get you to look at it from the other direction.
And, by the way, when I lived in Chicago I happened to notice gay folks were extremly prominent in the narcotics trade. It's not something I made up, it's an unfortunate fact. Lotsa dope in boystown, and it's not being sold by minority gang members.
If it's different in your neck of the woods, I'm glad. Keeping the dopers out of the scene probably makes it a whole lot easier for you guys to avoid being hassled. I wish the powder-fiend weirdos in Chicago would learn that lesson.
I now realize that it is totally impossible for you to consider yourself on the other end of these policies. You just can't do it, despite the fact that it is likely to happen and has probably already happened to you, for that matter.
I was only trying to get you to look at it from the other direction.
And, by the way, when I lived in Chicago I happened to notice gay folks were extremly prominent in the narcotics trade. It's not something I made up, it's an unfortunate fact. Lotsa dope in boystown, and it's not being sold by minority gang members.
If it's different in your neck of the woods, I'm glad. Keeping the dopers out of the scene probably makes it a whole lot easier for you guys to avoid being hassled. I wish the powder-fiend weirdos in Chicago would learn that lesson.
Playboypenguin
Moderator
I have no problem being on the other end of these policies. if I am doing something suspicious I do not fault the police for checking me out. It has happened before and will probably happen again.
You just making up some weird accusation about gay men and safes in their cars is pretty absurd though.
Indeed it was absurd, but it was the only opening I saw to try to get you to see the other side of the coin. You are just too normal and hard to attack, PBP.
I hope you are not saying that gay men are not the targets of profiling (both justified and not-so-justified) in urban, drug-soaked environments, because I have seen it.
Profiling is just so easily twisted into something despicable, that it's tough for me to see it in black-and-white, and I was hoping to point out that ambiguity by tossing out an unjustified stereotype that is actually something you may encounter.
Dopers do have safes in their cars, some gay folks sell drugs, and not everyone is bright enough to brush aside a meaningless combination of profiling factors.
I hope you are not saying that gay men are not the targets of profiling (both justified and not-so-justified) in urban, drug-soaked environments, because I have seen it.
Profiling is just so easily twisted into something despicable, that it's tough for me to see it in black-and-white, and I was hoping to point out that ambiguity by tossing out an unjustified stereotype that is actually something you may encounter.
Dopers do have safes in their cars, some gay folks sell drugs, and not everyone is bright enough to brush aside a meaningless combination of profiling factors.
You all are a bunch of Unknowns! Do you live around the boarder? Do you put up with the sneaks coming across? I didn't think so! Do you drive the 30 miles to save 90% on your meds? I say you have no Idea whats going on down here.
People on this side of the line have to obtain a pass port, crossing card or more just to get back into the USA. The Mexicans are not limited in this fashion.
It's kind of messed up when you can't leave your country and come home and yet foreigners can come and go as they wish!
Come on down to Deming New Mexico and live for a few years!
God! I smell the Corn Field! Have you been sent to the corn field?
If you don't adhere to the laws of the forum you can be whooshed off to the cornfield.!
Don't ask me how I know! It just happens!
People on this side of the line have to obtain a pass port, crossing card or more just to get back into the USA. The Mexicans are not limited in this fashion.
It's kind of messed up when you can't leave your country and come home and yet foreigners can come and go as they wish!
Come on down to Deming New Mexico and live for a few years!
God! I smell the Corn Field! Have you been sent to the corn field?
If you don't adhere to the laws of the forum you can be whooshed off to the cornfield.!
Don't ask me how I know! It just happens!
Playboypenguin
Moderator
If you did away with anything and everything that can be misused or twisted you would have exactly zero options left to you. That would be akin to banning guns because they can be used for evil means.
As for guys being profiled, we are not exactly known to be notorious law breakers. Gay gangs are not really a problem in this country. We don't do much of anything unless you consider raising property values bad.
It's too bad that you would be so eager to assault my civil liberties like that. Hopefully, you will not ever find yourself on the other side of your constitutionally flawed theory. If you did have your liberty infringed at will by an LEO, then my guess is that, afterward, you would not be so eager to infringe on the liberty of others.
Playboypenguin
Moderator
Exactly which of your civil liberties is being assaulted by being asked a question by law enforcement if you are acting suspicious in a suspicious area?
An unfortunate thread drift. I accept full responsibility. Sorry.
Since profiling can sneak up on anyone, though, and this thread had already wandered into profiling territory, I think it was somewhat justified.
I don't know how the heck we even ended up talking about profiling in the Mexican gun soldier thread, but we did.
Since profiling can sneak up on anyone, though, and this thread had already wandered into profiling territory, I think it was somewhat justified.
I don't know how the heck we even ended up talking about profiling in the Mexican gun soldier thread, but we did.
Google the BRIDGE OF THE AMERICAS and tell me how you could turn around!
Edit : here I did it for you ! http://www.elpasotexas.gov/FTZ/ports.asp
Edit : here I did it for you ! http://www.elpasotexas.gov/FTZ/ports.asp
What bothers me is that too many have decided that a soldier, on leave from duty, driving on a highway near a border cannot possibly have any legitimate reason for crossing the border.
We have no facts to go on other than those which were provided in the article: his desire to cross the border for breakfast.
To some, without contrary evidence, this was sufficient. To others, it is clearly a rouse to cover his ulterior motives, speculated to be drugs, prostitution or some other crime.
We've seen discussion on factors such as race, sexual orientation, etc., all justified by claiming that by observing behavior, any such characteristic can be "put in context" and become "profiling" rather than stereotyping. I'm not trying to argue that profiling isn't useful or appropriate when utilized by educated practitioners (although too often I doubt the ability of the practitioner to do so), but the fact remains that we have no evidence about his behavior.
We return to the fact that a Hispanic soldier, driving on I-10 from Texas to California to see his mother on her birthday, with a firearm in the car, claims to have made a mistake while driving which resulted in him driving into Mexico and made a u-turn. The Mexican police questioned him, found the firearm and arrested him. Despite there being no evidence of any other crime there has been wild speculation that he was likely going to commit a crime. Perhaps it's only me, but this is too much.
Why doesn't this man deserve the benefit of the doubt?
What about this man makes him deserving of our skepticism rather than thanks for serving our country?
What is it about crossing the border that makes one guilty of a crime, rather than simple curiosity about the region or tourism?
We don't know, because again, we can't claim that his "behavior" that day gives us any insight. We can however, make claims that if we saw him, we would have known since he was sweating more than a normal person would in a dry desert that he was up to no good and deserves to be thrown in a Mexican jail for possessing a handgun legally in Texas and "accidentally" crossing into Mexico.
We have no facts to go on other than those which were provided in the article: his desire to cross the border for breakfast.
To some, without contrary evidence, this was sufficient. To others, it is clearly a rouse to cover his ulterior motives, speculated to be drugs, prostitution or some other crime.
We've seen discussion on factors such as race, sexual orientation, etc., all justified by claiming that by observing behavior, any such characteristic can be "put in context" and become "profiling" rather than stereotyping. I'm not trying to argue that profiling isn't useful or appropriate when utilized by educated practitioners (although too often I doubt the ability of the practitioner to do so), but the fact remains that we have no evidence about his behavior.
We return to the fact that a Hispanic soldier, driving on I-10 from Texas to California to see his mother on her birthday, with a firearm in the car, claims to have made a mistake while driving which resulted in him driving into Mexico and made a u-turn. The Mexican police questioned him, found the firearm and arrested him. Despite there being no evidence of any other crime there has been wild speculation that he was likely going to commit a crime. Perhaps it's only me, but this is too much.
Why doesn't this man deserve the benefit of the doubt?
What about this man makes him deserving of our skepticism rather than thanks for serving our country?
What is it about crossing the border that makes one guilty of a crime, rather than simple curiosity about the region or tourism?
We don't know, because again, we can't claim that his "behavior" that day gives us any insight. We can however, make claims that if we saw him, we would have known since he was sweating more than a normal person would in a dry desert that he was up to no good and deserves to be thrown in a Mexican jail for possessing a handgun legally in Texas and "accidentally" crossing into Mexico.
LightningJoe
New member
Hee hee. I take it you were in the Army.
I consider myself Hispanic.
Others consider me white. I'm a white boy with a Hispanic family.
My comments had nothing to do with race.
I didn't say he went there for drugs. I speculated that he was lying in his purpose of food.
Juarez is very popular for two things, drugs and cheap labor.
EP food is as good, to far better.
Knowing what I know about the area, and that fact that he isn't from the area, it is easy to speculate what the reasons for him being there could be.
I also don't think anyone deserves to be held there for weapons.
The good news is, once his family coughs up the ransom, he will be let go.
Yes, that would be ransom, to pay police.
Odd that everyone picked up on my use of the word "drugs" and not my use of the word "corruption" in my earlier post.
If he was there for drug trafficking, the police would have let him go already.
Watch the movie "Man On Fire" to get a small glimps of what I mean. It's a decent taste of the corruption I speak of.
People seem to think that it was a Hollywood plot-twist and nothing more. When, in fact, it is completely true and happened often.
Others consider me white. I'm a white boy with a Hispanic family.
My comments had nothing to do with race.
I didn't say he went there for drugs. I speculated that he was lying in his purpose of food.
Juarez is very popular for two things, drugs and cheap labor.
EP food is as good, to far better.
Knowing what I know about the area, and that fact that he isn't from the area, it is easy to speculate what the reasons for him being there could be.
I also don't think anyone deserves to be held there for weapons.
The good news is, once his family coughs up the ransom, he will be let go.
Yes, that would be ransom, to pay police.
Odd that everyone picked up on my use of the word "drugs" and not my use of the word "corruption" in my earlier post.
If he was there for drug trafficking, the police would have let him go already.
Watch the movie "Man On Fire" to get a small glimps of what I mean. It's a decent taste of the corruption I speak of.
People seem to think that it was a Hollywood plot-twist and nothing more. When, in fact, it is completely true and happened often.