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Most Controversial Issues In Today's Society

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Stop and frisk. One of the most controversial issues of today's society. This dates back all the way to 1967 with the case Terry v Ohio. In this case, an officer by the name of Martin Mcfadden, patrolling his surrounding area, noticed two African American men acting “suspiciously” in front of a store on a street corner at 1276 Euclid Avenue. Mcfadden described the men to be alternately walking back and forth and conversing while taking breaks in between. He also stated that the two men later met up with another African American male one block over and soon after, rejoined him in front of the store once more.Officer Mcfadden believed he was witnessing what seemed to be a “stick up”; nuisances “casing a job”. Mcfadden stated he feared not only …show more content…

The defense attempted to suppress the use of weapons for evidence stating that the search and seizure that was conducted in order to discover those weapons, was a violation of the fourth amendment.The motion to suppress however, was denied. Terry chose to fight the case with an appeal. This flipped the case in which it became Terry v Ohio rather than Ohio v Terry. The case reached the intermediate appellate court where John W. Terry attempted to appeal the conviction restating that an unlawful search occurred and that his arrest was a result of an invasion of privacy. Unfortunately for Terry the court of appeals upheld the original conviction and ignored the due process clause in which his defense relied on. In an 8-1 decision, the supreme court held that the search was reasonable under the 4th amendment and that officers are allowed to slightly expand the right to search if they feel a threat present. The reasoning behind it was simple. The men imposed a “threat” therefore everything that occurred was …show more content…

I personally do not believe in stop and frisk. The policy of stop and frisk is supposed to be an action used for suspicious activity however, it is being used for racial profiling instead. I believe stop and frisk is just another excuse to violate and attack minorities. As stated in the article mentioned above “Why Stop and Frisk Does Not Work”, african americans are stopped and frisked 23% more times than whites and still less contraband and weapons are found on african americans.The fourth amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. So why target the innocent people or people who are less likely to contain weapons/contraband? This is because they are using discriminatory practices and use stop and frisk to single out minorities. Being black is a crime. At least that is how the system sees it. Not all law enforcement is bad but a large portion of them have this ignorant mindset that allows them to think and act the way they do . As an African American you're never safe. You continuously have to live in fear. You have to watch the way you walk, talk, position your hands, look at people, etc because anything as a black person can be seen as a threat considering our skin is already one. Rather than fighting actual crime, law enforcement officers are stopping people just to display their authority over you. I, as a young african american woman, could not

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