{"id":440,"date":"2012-02-13T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=440"},"modified":"2012-02-13T07:51:54","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T12:51:54","slug":"police-profiling-for-officer-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=440","title":{"rendered":"Police Profiling for Officer Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was driving to work last night in my personal car.\u00a0 My route takes me through a relatively rundown section of the city where I work.\u00a0 I always tend to scan around as I drive, which sometimes prompts my wife to say, “Stop patrolling!”<\/p>\n

On this night, I saw some people walking around and from the anonymity of my own car, I thought about the nature of my observations as a citizen verses those of a law enforcement officer.\u00a0 A red light stopped me at a cross street.<\/p>\n

A young black male was walking up to the intersection.\u00a0 I gave him the once over:\u00a0 baggy black basketball shorts, loose black hoodie with a white logo, court shoes, dark do-rag.\u00a0 He was about 17 to 18 years of age.\u00a0\u00a0 The innocent half of me saw what could be a nice kid who practices hard at hoops (based on his dress) at a local high school and gets good grades.<\/p>\n

My trained side sized him up as any number of recent young cop killers that have become too common in Florida.\u00a0 Did he have a weapon on him.\u00a0 He kept his hands in the hoodies’ pockets, close at his front waistband…about where a firearm is appendix-carried.<\/p>\n

In the last 20 months, Tampa Ofc.’s David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab, St.. Petersburg Ofc. David Crawford, and Lakeland Ofc. Arnulfo Crispin were all murdered by males of this general description in street encounters.<\/p>\n

Off to my right was a white female walking south down the sidewalk.\u00a0 Probably around 20.\u00a0 She had on jeans and a t-shirt and was talking on a cellphone.\u00a0 She looked over her shoulder at passing cars a couple of times.\u00a0 Is she “working,” or just a kid headed to a friend’s house for dinner?\u00a0 Would she have a needle on her?\u00a0 I would have needed more information.<\/p>\n

The traffic light changed and I continued my drive.\u00a0 Nearing a shopping center, my eyes caught a man with a distinct Middle Eastern appearance.\u00a0 He wore conservative white clothes, a Muslim prayer cap, and nice shoes.\u00a0 His face showed a dark complexion and a neatly trimmed full beard.\u00a0 In his right hand was a large department store shopping bag.\u00a0 We briefly gazed at one another as I motored past.<\/p>\n

The man was dressed a bit nicely for the part of town. I noticed he was calm, but alert, and he walked with a confident gate.\u00a0 He obviously saw me look at him.\u00a0 He appeared to be a man of education and a professional.\u00a0 My skeptical alter-ego wondered if a man such as this could have ties to enemies of the State here and abroad.<\/p>\n

I bring up my thoughts during the drive because as police officers we tend to profile people in jaded terms based upon officer safety.\u00a0 Our heightened situational awareness also helps us investigate more effectively.\u00a0 In these cases, political correctness is trumped by duty and self-survival.<\/p>\n

As a road cop, I have encountered murderers, prostitutes, and even a couple of watch-list terrorists.\u00a0 Can you tell them from innocent, ordinary citizens at a glance?\u00a0 I can’t.\u00a0 Each street encounter with a person by a law enforcement officer must default to professional suspicion.\u00a0 It keeps us alive.<\/p>\n

We sacrifice many things to wear the Star or the Shield.\u00a0 One of them, perhaps, is optimism.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was driving to work last night in my personal car.\u00a0 My route takes me through a relatively rundown section of the city where I work.\u00a0 I always tend to scan around as I drive, which sometimes prompts my wife to say, “Stop patrolling!” On this night, I saw some people walking around and from the anonymity of my own car, I thought about the nature of my observations as a citizen verses those of a law enforcement officer.\u00a0 A red light stopped me at a cross street. A young black male was walking up to the intersection.\u00a0 I gave him the once over:\u00a0 baggy black basketball shorts, loose black … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[828,64],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-officer-safety","category-street","tag-officer-safety","tag-police-profiling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-76","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}