[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I'm sure it played a role. As Ben said, cops are always assessing risk. The same reason cops treated me differently when I was a teenager driving around with my friends than they do now. A white tattooed guy with a mohawk and wifebeater is going to be treated differently from a white guy in a suit. I don't know if that is fair or not, but it's part of police work. I do think cops owe people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

My issue is that I think cops are dicks universally to people. I don't think some wing of the KKK all decided to join the police force and decided to only treat black people poorly. I think if you punched a cop in the face, you'd take a beating regardless of race. That turning this into strictly a race issue ignores the bigger issue that police brutality hurts everyone.

I don't think officers are dicks universally to people. Using Ben's example, it was obvious to him that the officer was not being a dick to the other drivers in front of him. Now maybe there are reasons other than race for the change in approach but I don't think it is unreasonable for him to believe that race played a large role in that situation. On the other hand, I would not expect the drivers of the vans in front of him to believe that race would not have played a role in the officer's decision based on their interaction with said officer. But to me, the important part of that story was all the prep work he did prior to his interaction with the officer. To do all that prep work to avoid being considered a risk is bad enough. To do it and still be treated as potential high risk candidate is worse.