Racial profiling is so prevalent in mostly black neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale that Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein was forced to write the police department earlier this year to complain.
How bad is it? Cops are even citing people for failing to walk on a sidewalk -- even on streets with no sidewalks, according to Channel 7.
Cops defend their actions by saying they're targeting high-crime areas, not stopping people based on the color of their skin.
Finkelstein wasn't buying it. "One can only conclude that the City of Fort Lauderdale condones profiling of its citizens for 'walking while black,'" Finkelstein wrote to the police department. "Law enforcement in the City of Fort Lauderdale has decided to bully and intimidate at all levels."
Such racial profiling will increase nationwide if the Supreme Court rubber stamps Arizona's immigration law. It's enough to think there's a war on the brown-skinned around the corner and spurred Village Voice Media to produce a special report this week. Read all of the
stories here:
Bordering on Revolution
By Michael Lacey
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wasn't merely skeptical; he appeared contemptuous of the Justice Department's argument trying to stop Arizona's cops from continue>>
Days of Rage
By Stephen Lemons
Today in America, one in four Latino voters knows someone in deportation proceedings. The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court don't care. continue>>
New Laws in Dozens of States Could Take Out Barack Obama This Fall
By Chuck Strouse
Around noon on a windy fall Sunday, the motorcade began forming. Dozens of African-Americans, ages 5 to 85, poured from the three-story New Covenant Baptist Church and into continue>>
Love the Beans, Hate the Beaner
By Gustavo Arellano
A couple of years back, I put four white supremacists in prison. They had made the mistake of going into continue>>
Eric Barton is editor of New Times Broward-Palm Beach. Email him here, or click here to follow him on Facebook.
