Prejudice

2 a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b : an instance of such judgment or opinion c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Langston spoke up when the panel's chairwoman asked members if they wanted to do ride-alongs with police as part of their learning experience. Langston pooh-poohed the idea as useless, saying panel members wouldn't see cops being as they really are.
"Of course they're not going to really get out there and arrest somebody the way they would normally arrest them in Newtown if you're riding along," Langston said.


I have been with the police department for around ten years and spent most of my career in the North District. I have been called a CRACKER on a daily basis and been cursed at by many in the area. However, I understand that this is only done by a minority of the individuals in the area and the community as a whole has a lot of good people that deserve to grow up in a drug and crime free area. Are we perfect? Far far from it. Police work is the only career that I know that the harder you work, the more trouble you are going to get into. It comes down to simple stats. The more people I come into contact with, the more chances I have of pissing somebody off.

For the bad ones, you are getting closer and closer to what you've always wanted! We are retreating into self-survival mode and avoiding anything that might get us into trouble or a situation that might require us to use any type of force. I remember a specific incident when Fredd Atkins approached two officers who were simply sitting in their patrol car at the corner of M.L.K. Way and Pershing Ave and asked them to leave. Now Mr. Atkins is stating that there is not enough police presence in the area. We all know the old saying about this!

I personally would love to have a great working relationship with the individuals in the Newtown Area. I would love for the day to occur when a crime happens and I have a group of witnesses approach me and tell me what had occurred. However, this is far from real life, unless a cop happens to be the target of the investigation. I know one thing for sure, this is going to be a very long journey!

Well said....

...I have been called a CRACKER on a daily basis...

I'm not from the deep south, so when first I came down here and was called a "cracker," I didn't know what the hell she meant. I simply looked at her like a deer in headlights and said, "Cracker"? :shock:

I still don't know what the hell a cracker is, except that some African Americans like to call European Americans "crackers." I guess some African Americans think it's the equivalent of the n word. Whatever. :roll:

I prefer to be called a European American. :devil: (politically correct)

I still don't know what the hell a cracker is, except that some African Americans like to call European Americans "crackers." I guess some African Americans think it's the equivalent of the n word. Whatever. :roll:

African Americans have the n word and European Americans have the c (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_color_of_authority) word. :snicker:

Long before Tourists brought money to Florida, Agriculture was top money maker here. Oranges and cattle. Both still rank high.

Florida Cowboys on horseback moved cattle across the state, cracking whips to get them going.

There are still historic markers for the Florida Cracker Trail.


The black settlers called all the white cowboys or farmers "Crackers".

Police Harassment

Recently, the Chula Vista, California Police Department ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, "Community Policing."

One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question, "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?"

From the "other side" (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:

"First of all, let me tell you this...it's not easy. In Chula Vista, we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as "patrol") where we do most of our harassing. The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.

Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.

The tools available to us are as follows:

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase used often. This means we'll come out and give somebody some special harassment.

Another popular one: "There's a guy breaking into a house." The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver's licenses and the like. It's lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.

STATUTES: When we don't have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Statutes"; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Codes, etc...They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there's this book we have that says that's not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It's a really cool system that we've set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to "harass" some people.

Next time you are in my town, give me the old "single finger wave." That's another one of those codes. It means, "You can't harass me." It's one of our favorites.

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