[BenLurkin]

But courts have set a different standard for places where street crime is common, ruling that police can chase, stop and frisk people if their location contributes to a suspicion of criminal activity

AP is crazed. There is no way the Constitution can be ignored that way.

[Theoria]

That has been the sop for at least 15 years.

[Boogieman]

The AP isn’t talking about the Constitution, they are talking about the Supreme Courtstitution.

[Bogey78O]

English common law establishes cops can investigate suspicious behavior. The USSC just deals with the murkier elements of what is suspicious.

[familyop]

"AP is crazed. There is no way the Constitution can be ignored that way."

I lived in a rough, black, inner city neighborhood in the Midwest during the late 1970s for the purpose of being closer to work. It wasn't done much back then. The police wouldn't even show up in residential parts of that neighborhood without three cars loaded with four policemen each with shotguns.

During the late 1990s, I lived in a mostly Mexican/Mexican-American neighborhood in a city of the West. The area was said to be one of the roughest, but it wasn't bad at all. The stop-and-frisk policy was active there. It happened all the time.

Not saying that the stop-and-frisk policy made the latter neighborhood any safer. It didn't. But there were far fewer dangerous psychopaths.

Not saying that black folks are any worse than others, either. Most of them were generous and kind. They only spoke and behaved in some ways differently from us--ways that had nothing to do with the crimes committed by the extremely small percentage of mean ones.

There was a very noticeable difference between the two neighborhoods, though. The neighborhood of the 1990s in the West respected fatherhood and family. And by the way, that Mexican neighborhood was far safer than the white neighborhood of the small, Midwestern city that I left behind (very corrupt).

Oh, yeah, there are stop-and-frisk policies. But they don't do anything about the roots of the problem (joblessness, drugs, feminism/cohabitation/divorce,...).