By David K. Shipler
On a warm
night some summers ago, a wiry sergeant named G. G. Neill and his “power shift”
of police officers pulled their four marked squad cars into a somber,
impoverished block in Southeast Washington, D.C. Six cops got out, none of them
undercover. They were in uniform because they wanted to see what young black
men hanging out on a street corner would do when the law appeared. Neill believed that telltale reactions would often betray a person who was concealing
a gun.
The armed man’s
buddies, hanging out, might all turn to look at him. He might walk quickly
away. He might turn one side away from the cops, lean against a car, hold his
girlfriend tightly on his weapon side, or repeatedly touch his waistband to be
sure the gun is securely in place. His clothes might be too bulky for the
weather, or an ill-fitting jacket would hang lopsided, as if weighed down by something heavy in a pocket.
This time in
this block, however, and in many others during the deep nights when I traveled
parts of the nation’s capital with the unit, the young black men did nothing suspicious.
That didn’t prevent them from being searched. Some were so used to the cops
coming around that they pulled up their T-shirts, without being asked, to show
they had nothing stuck in their belts. They were as casual as passengers
removing their shoes at airport security. Others allowed themselves to be
patted down with no overt objections except for the smoldering looks in their
eyes. They raised their arms so the cops could run their hands up and down
their bodies and between their legs, then squeeze their pockets.
This is the
sorry state of the Fourth Amendment in the nation’s heavily black
neighborhoods. The Framers carefully crafted the protection of “the right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures.” But that right, which is not to be overcome unless probable cause exists that
evidence of a crime will be found, has been shredded by the war on drugs, the
war on street violence, and most recently the war on terrorism. Wars, whether
actual or metaphorical, do not comport well with individual liberties.
