Perceptions while profiling

I’ve been pondering something I witnessed a couple of nights ago by my place. These were my observations that night:

Several young adult African-American males walk down the street. An unmarked police car pulls into the alley near them; one of the cops yells, “Over here.” The young men all immediately approach the nearest car, arms up and mostly in front, and they place their hands on the car, spread-eagled. The two cops frisk them all, one by one. No struggle or audible protests from the young men. I’m too far away to hear any conversation, but it goes on for awhile. I don’t know when the police left. An hour or so later, five of the young men have recongregated kitty-corner from my building (if there were more initially, I can’t be sure). They’re talking, then they split up; three head the other way, the other two get into a nearby car. I hear this repeatedly from one of the two: “I don’t need no gun.”

I tried to write the above as neutrally as possible, and realized how difficult it was. Is it possible to be a clear, dispassionate observer? Even the details I noticed were likely influenced by my biases, conscious or not. Shedding prejudice is a rigorous activity. Thoughts running through my mind simultaneously: “Had the cops received a crime report?” “Were they patrolling and believed that more than one young African-American male walking down the street was cause for investigation? I’m also trying to profile the cops. If any of the young men had been carrying a gun, he would have been arrested (Chicago has a gun ban) and there’s no way any could have been back on the streets so soon. I didn’t feel the need to seek cover. Influences on my perceptions and thinking: 1) I’ve noticed an increase in police patrols in my area. On the one hand, it should make me feel safer, but on the other, I wonder what it signals. Are they only now taking notice of something that may have been going on all along? Or are the seemingly stepped-up patrols an indication of growing problems in the area? 2) More than a year ago, I noticed a group of young people gathering frequently outside the building across the street. On one occasion, it looked an awful lot like gang activity (guys repeatedly driving by, hanging out the car windows thighs on up and hollering at the more than 20 people hanging out on the sidewalk and alley—they were clearly looking for someone and both they and the group sounded hostile). I called the cops. I haven’t seen anything like it since a week or two after that incident, but what does that mean? Did the person(s) at whose place they were congregating move? (The building is rental units, not condos—and of course the perception is that gang members wouldn’t be owners.) Or were the aggressors neutralized? 3) I absolutely believe that unjust racial profiling occurs. Even though I know that the other extreme, stopping an old Scandinavian grandmother from boarding an airplane for carrying banned articles, in an effort to be “fair and impartial” would be just plain absurd. (Justice is blind, after all, right?) To date there have been no Norwegian suicide bombers. But “Driving While Black,” even “Walking While Black” is an “offense” that seems to occur disturbingly often. 4) One of my brothers was particularly delinquent in his youth, and on more than one occasion I happened to drive by his car (it was a small town), pulled over by a cop who was just checking to see what he was up to. Once he had gotten the cops’ attention they kept close tabs on him, and he preferred to believe that they had it in for him. It was easier to get into the finer points of cops of German ancestry “harassing” an idiot of Norwegian ancestry (the town and nearly the entire county then was Caucasian, so racial profiling had to be taken to a much lower level). Not all scrutiny is unearned. But zeal is particularly susceptible to blinders.