[RP TownTalk] car break-in

[Chris Currie]

I think the issue here is attitudes vs. practices.

If a citizen or police officer has a prejudiced attitude toward persons of
certain races, ethnic groups, classes, etc., then innocent people can be
unfairly targeted and victimized.

However, the practice of reporting or investigating unusual activity or
behavior in not bad in itself and has been demonstrated to reduce crime.

The solution to the problem Heather correctly identifies is not to ban best
practices, but to correct bad attitudes.

I have a personal experience to share.  In 18 years of living in
neighboring Hyattsville, there has only been one break-in on my block.  I
saw that break-in while it was in progress.  I work from home, and mid-day
on a weekday I was coming downstairs and saw through my front door window
that a man was standing on the sidewalk near the house of our neighbors
across the street.  He wasn't the only man in the vicinity, nor the only
person of color, as there was a public works project going on next to the
road and a number of men were milling about on their lunch hour.  Even if
there hadn't been, our street has a lot of vehicle and foot traffic and I
see people on the sidewalk all the time without giving them a second
thought.  But for some reason, an unconscious alarm bell went off in my
head, and I stopped and stared at this particular man for several seconds.
What I didn't do, however, was think to call the police.  I finally moved
on, with an uneasy feeling, although I couldn't explain to myself why I had
that feeling.

Later that afternoon, I learned that burglars had broken into the house
through an open window, while the owner and her children were at church
(gone less than an hour), had ransacked a few rooms and stole a number of
items.  The man I had seen was the lookout.  Police told the owner that
burglars often look for homes next to a construction site because they can
blend in with the unusual activity already happening in the vicinity, while
the workers themselves, who don't live in the neighborhood, rarely stop to
notice the newcomers.

Our brains are complex computers.  Intuition is the ability to piece
together seemingly unrelated or very subtle information in remarkably
incisive ways.  My conscious mind couldn't find a reason to be suspicious
of the person across the street, but unconsciously, my intuition told me
that something was not right with the man who was just standing there.
Maybe it was because he wasn't interacting with anyone else, or because he
looked especially alert and vigilant.  Some part of my brain was connecting
dots that eluded my conscious mind.

That said, our intuition can be polluted by our prejudices.  I think we can
consciously filter for those.  In this case, there were several other
strangers matching this man's demographic profile, but I was only wary of
this one.  Police tell us, make the call, and let us determine whether or
not there is an actual reason to be concerned.

To this day, I still feel badly when I remember this incident, because if I
had acted on my unease, the criminals might have been caught and further
crimes prevented (this incident turned out to be part of a wave of
break-ins at that time).  I vowed that I wouldn't let it happen again.

The solution to prejudice is not for people not to do their jobs; it's to
learn to do their jobs well.  That includes you and I, in our civic duty to
look out for our neighbors.

Chris Currie
Hyattsville


Message: 1
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2015 21:27:54 -0400
From: Heather Cronk <heather.cronk at gmail.com>
To: Sarah Wayland <sarah.wayland at gmail.com>
Cc: "TownTalk at riverdale-park.org" <TownTalk at riverdale-park.org>
Subject: Re: [RP TownTalk] car break-in
Message-ID:
        <CAAoPFO2Qmsnkk3DoE24WkwinmUhBYONiq0ub=4y+DaznPziEqw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I appreciate the background, Sarah.  Unfortunately, the idea of calling the
police under the policy of, "If it looks weird, give us a call" doesn't
make me feel any better.

The problem is that a community policing effort that relies mostly on
subjective standards still relies on an individual's perception of danger,
or even on something being "askew." I'm all for community-driven solutions
that supplant a police force -- but the type of effort you're describing
still sounds like it's grounded on individual perception.  That individual
perception is, of course, also grounded in systems of oppression that many
of us learn at an early age.

I know that we all want to believe that "our" police force is different
than those that flagrantly abuse their power and harass people of color for
little more than walking down the street (as in the case of Eric Garner in
NY) or rolling through a stop sign (as in the case of Sandra Bland in TX)
-- and I hope that's true.  But when the evidence overwhelmingly points to
police bias and when too many of my friends report police harassment on a
regular basis, I would really rather not call the police unless I observe
someone in immediate danger.

I appreciate the conversation and hope that our police force is "listening
in" via email.  I haven't yet been able to attend a community forum with
the police chief, but I hope to do so soon.  And unless we're hearing from
the police chief that the Riverdale police force has undergone extensive
cultural competency training and has an explicit commitment to
de-escalation, I'll remain skeptical of calling the police in anything but
overtly dangerous situations.

-Heather
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