Emmanuel Stephens and Jasmine Whitley are photographed at their home in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, July 29, 2015. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
The San Jose, California, police department is being sued by a black family over an ugly incident of racial profiling.
Emmanuel Stephens and Jasmine Whitley (pictured) had picked up their 7-year-old daughter from school and were driving home when a cop began following them. When they arrived at home, the cop jumped out of his patrol car and pointed his drawn gun at them, handcuffed the father and put him in the patrol car.
When the couple’s 14-year-old came out of the house to see what was going on, the cop told her she would go to Juvenile Hall if she recorded the incident on her cellphone.
Police later claimed they were investigating a call about “a suspicious black man with a purple backpack.”
The family’s lawyer claims this kind of profiling “happens all the time and is a real problem” in San Jose. He has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the family.
Earlier this year, a San Jose newspaper analyzed police data and found “significant racial disparities in [traffic] stops.” When San Jose cops pull over minorities for traffic infractions, it is common for them to handcuff them and search their vehicles without consent. In this case, the black driver didn’t even commit a traffic violation; he was stopped for “driving while black.”
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Comment: Lawsuits don’t take racist cops off the street, which is what needs to happen. Legal settlements are paid by insurance or innocent taxpayers. This cop should be fired, but probably won’t even be reprimanded. Citizens have no control over who gets hired by police departments, and there’s no discipline or accountability when cops behave badly. The result is that citizens’ trust and respect for police is eroding, and in many communities the police are now viewed as a threat by ordinary law-abiding citizens. If that isn’t a crisis calling for drastic action, then what is?