Workers World Jan. 27, 2000: Supreme Court ruling protects cops<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../ui/styles/top.css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="../../ui/script/ie5.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.workers.org/ui/script/DropDownMenuX.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> window.onload = function() { var ddmx = new DropDownMenuX("menu1"); ddmx.type = "horizontal"; ddmx.delay.show = 0; ddmx.delay.hide = 400; ddmx.position.level1.top = 0; ddmx.position.level1.left = 0; ddmx.position.levelX.top = 0; ddmx.position.levelX.left = 0; ddmx.fixIeSelectBoxBug = true; ddmx.zIndex.visible = 500; ddmx.zIndex.hidden = -1; ddmx.init(); } </script> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#483d8b" vlink="#2f4f4f" alink="#a52a2a">  <table width="65%" border="0" cellpadding="10" align="center"> <tr> <td height="911" align="left" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <a href="http://www.workers.org/"><img src="../../images/wwlogo.png" alt="Workers.org" width="600" height="58" border="0" /></a></td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="menu1" class="ddmx"> <tr> <td> <a class="item1" href="http://www.workers.org/">Home</a></td> <td> <a class="item1" href="javascript:void(0)">Books</a> <div class="section"> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/index.html">Selected works of Sam Marcy</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sambol/index.htm">Bolsheviks and War</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samtech/index.htm">High Tech, Low Pay</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samsoc/index.htm">Soviet Socialism: Utopian or Scientific</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/indonesia/index.html">Indonesia 1965</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/cm/empire.html">Expanding Empire</a> </div></td> <td><a class="item1" href="javascript:void(0)">Subscribe</a> <div class="section"><a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/email.php">Email list</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/orders/index.php">Print edition</a> </div></td> <td> <a class="item1" href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">Donate </a></td> <td> <a class="item3" href="http://www.workers.org/mo/index.html">Noticias en Español</a> </td> </tr> </table> <print> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3"><tr> <td width="19%" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#E2E2E2"> <p class="caption">Support<br /> anti-war,<br /> anti-racist<br /> news </p> <p class="caption"><a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">:: Donate now ::</a></p> <hr /> <p class="caption"><print><a href="http://www.workers.org/cgi-bin/mailww/mailww.cgi"><img src="http://www.workers.org/graphics/email.gif" width="21" height="20" border="0" alt="Email this article" />Email this article</a> </print></p> <p class="caption"><print><a href="/print.php"><img src="http://www.workers.org/graphics/printer.gif" width="21" height="20" border="0" alt="Print this page" />Printable page</a></print></p> <hr /> <p class="caption"><a href="mailto:letters@workers.org">Email the editor</a></p> <form method="get" action="http://www.workers.org/cgi-bin/search/search.pl"> <input name="Terms" id="fdse_TermsEx" size="12" maxlength="255" class="email" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" style="align: center; padding: 1px 2px 1px 2px; background: #DCDCDC; color: darkslategray; font-size: 9px; border: solid #696969 1px;" /> </form> <p class="caption"> </p></td> <td width="81%"> <blockquote> <div align="right" class="translate"><a href="http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/ref.php?from=en" title="click here to translate this page into any language, using the Fagan Finder Translation Wizard" target="new" hreflang="en">Translate this page</a></div>  <h1>Supreme Court ruling protects cops</h1> <P><B>By Anya Mukarji-Connolly</B></P> <P>On Jan. 12 the Supreme Court ruled in an unanimous decision that police officers may sometimes stop and frisk any person who flees from the sight of a police officer. This ruling gives the police more power by expanding the rules that allow a police officer to stop and frisk someone. It comes at a time when police brutality runs rampant in the poorest and most oppressed communities.</P><P>The decision stems from the case of Illinois v. Wardlow, in which a young Chicago man ran when he saw four police cars approach. The court stopped short of allowing the Illinois blanket rule, which said that the police could stop anyone who fled at the sight of an officer. This rule is in place in 17 other states.</P><P>Still, the court expanded police power. This latest ruling said that a person fleeing at the sight of the police is an important factor that creates enough suspicion, along with other factors, for a police officer to stop and frisk him or her.</P><P>According to the court, however, merely running away from an officer is by itself not enough to allow an officer to stop and search that person. People in the poor and oppressed communities know that this technicality will have little effect on how police treat them. The ruling was made to protect the police, not to help the people.</P><P>The police rule the streets. They have to answer to no one. They shoot and then explain. Only where a mass protest greets police outrages are police even brought into court for their blatant brutalities.</P><P>Justice John Paul Stevens and three other justices concurred in their opinion that there are some individuals, particularly people of color, who are innocent but have reason to fear the police and as a result may flee from a police officer believing that contact with an officer may be dangerous. These four justices, however, also joined the chief justice in his opinion that allows flight to be an important factor in an officer's decision to stop someone. </P><P>Had these justices actually understood the terror felt in most communities towards the police, they would not have joined the majority in this decision, which adds more fuel to the police terror that already runs the streets.</P><P>In oppressed communities, fear of the police is well understood. In Riverside, Calif., police shot Tyisha Miller, a young Black woman, 27 times in December 1998. Miller's friends had called 911 because Miller was suffering from a seizure.</P><P>New Jersey is famous for state troopers' bias in stopping non-white drivers for violations. People even said the crime there is DWB, or "driving while Black," after one study showed more than three-quarters of those stopped were people of color. </P><P>In one case in April 1998 troopers stopped four young Black men on their way to a North Carolina basketball clinic and fired into their van after they pulled them over on the New Jersey Turnpike.</P><P>This latest Supreme Court ruling fails to account for the relationship between the police and oppressed communities. Police have shot youths on the street, in their cars, and in front of their families, in these communities--all for looking "suspicious."</P><P>Now the Supreme Court has declared that "reasonable suspicion" is enough for stopping a suspect. What do the police consider "suspicious"? Being poor, being a person of color and fearing the terrorist police that control their communities.</P><P></P>  <p>This article is copyright under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">Creative Commons License</a>.   <br /> Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011<br> Email: <a href="MAILTO:ww@workers.org">ww@workers.org</a><br> Subscribe <a href="MAILTO:wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net">wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net</a><br> Support independent news <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php</a>)  </p> <p class="caption"><a href="http://www.workers.org/">HOME</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/us/">U.S. NEWS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/world/">WORLD NEWS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/editorials/">EDITORIALS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/">SUBSCRIBE</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">DONATE</a></p> </blockquote> </body> </html>