Something happened last year on the College Campus of L.A. Trade Tech - I know a guy who was obtained in an incident that certainly 'sounds like' racial profiling; I don't know all of the laws of this country, so perhaps someone out there more versed in law can help me understand this but, Is this Legal?? Read about this incident below.
Courtesy of the L.A. Times - The original article can be read here, perhaps until the link dies;
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday launched an investigation into how the Sheriff's Department conducted a narcotics-search operation at Los Angeles Trade Tech College in which 33 students, all minorities, were detained.
The Oct. 17 incident has fueled allegations of racial profiling from civil rights groups and sparked changes in the way the Sheriff's Department communicates with the Los Angeles Community College District.
Deputies detained 32 African American students after investigating drug activity on campus for several months. A Latino student videotaping the incident also was detained, according to Sheriff's Department officials. No one was arrested. A video posted on YouTube.com shows several clusters of black students sitting on campus building steps, surrounded by deputies.
"I will tell you that the sheriff's actions were the worst kind of racial profiling," said Catherine Lhamon, racial justice director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which is investigating the incident. An investigation conducted by the college district, which oversees the trade school, concluded last week that the student roundup constituted racial profiling: using racial or ethnic characteristics to determine whether a person is likely to have committed a crime.
Sheriff Lee Baca said that deputies who conducted the undercover sting operation, without the knowledge of campus officials, said they believed they were observing a narcotics sale in progress. Hoping to keep the suspect in sight, deputies detained all the students surrounding the activity, Baca said.
"The outcome certainly, any way you slice it, ended up being racial profiling," said Marshall "Mark" Drummond, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.
jp.renaud@latimes.com
The Video Footage can be seen here: it's grainy, perhaps taken with a cell phone.
A class action suit was recently filed against the Police; The guy I know who's name will remain nameless for now, says they were just sitting there; That is where they meet every day before class, sit around, talk, and you know - the things people do at school between, before, and after class.
I don't think it's legal to arrest EVERYBODY near a "percieved" crime area - as citizens we cannot allow something like this to become commonplace; At least to me, it doesn't sound very Constitutional.
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