Racial Profiling In The Bay Area

[crashhelmet]

Atherton, CA is a small city south of San Francisco and a couple miles north of Stanford University.

According to Forbes magazine, it is the most expensive city to live in in California and the 3rd most expensive zip code in the nation.

According to their own police blotter, 175 out of the 182 drivers cited for traffic violations between February and July of this year had Hispanic surnames.

Only 2 of those cited were actual Atherton residents.

After being called out on it, they did the proper, professional, and responsible thing. They stopped publishing their blotter.

Pinterest Engineer Kent Brewster discovered this and published on a site he simply calls
Profiling Atherton

The last company I worked for before I left the Bay Area was right down the street from here. This is your typical rich, white neighborhood. The majority of the houses are mansions, or damn near close to it. Atherton's police blotter has been the source of many jokes by many locals and comedians that come to the area.

Pics of their blotter from the San Jose Mercury newspaper (via imgur)
And the SJ Merc web site

How much of this is racist as opposed to classist/elitist? If a Latino is driving a Rolls Royce, do they get a pass?

[wolfie]

How much of this is racist as opposed to classist/elitist? If a Latino is driving a Rolls Royce, do they get a pass?

Depends - If he's wearing a chauffeur's uniform (especially if an anglo is riding in the back), yes. If not, it's obvious he stole it.

[Racket_Man]

There is a small wealthy town just north of Chicago called Kenilworth. nice old area with llots of old woodframe houses and some walled estates with gate houses.

It is rumored that if you are driving through and your car looks a little to beat up or old the town cops WILL stop you and tell you to make a quick exit from their territory. It does not matter if you are white or brown or pink with blue spots you will get pulled over and "encouraged" to leave the area.

[wolfie]

What happens if someone who lives there orders a pizza? After all, you NEVER see a pizza guy driving a brand-new Lexus.

Alternately, some REALLY rich people are eccentric (cf Howard Hughes). I'd like to see how the town cops would react to a billionaire who owns a few dozen beat-up old clunkers (he LIKES those cars) buying a house in town.

[crashhelmet]

What happens if someone who lives there orders a pizza? After all, you NEVER see a pizza guy driving a brand-new Lexus.

Alternately, some REALLY rich people are eccentric (cf Howard Hughes). I'd like to see how the town cops would react to a billionaire who owns a few dozen beat-up old clunkers (he LIKES those cars) buying a house in town.

Actually...

When the dot-bomb mess happened back in 2001-2002, there were a lot of silicon valley / Bay Area residents taking whatever jobs they could get, including delivering pizzas in their fancy cars.

A quick Google-Fu session turned up another occurrence as recent as 2010

[Andara Bledin]

This happens pretty much any place where you have more cops than crime and they can pick out people they don't recognize or who look "out of place."

My mother got tagged for being in an older car and the reason given for her being pulled over was that a tire that the police in question could not have possibly seen (front tire, they were never in front of the car). My ex got tagged for this, once, as well, because the cops couldn't believe someone that scruffy could possibly own a nice convertible. They told him they were looking for a stolen vehicle, which, when you realize that they could have looked up the plates (personalized and would have been out of place on anything other than a convertible) and known it was not only not the right vehicle but belonged in that area, you have to realize is just plain bullshit.

So, you neither have to be in a nice area, nor do you have to be a minority (both examples above are white as white can be) to get hassled by bored cops.

But that still doesn't make it right. Just not necessarily racially motivated.