heero:

As I have already explained, the cases I have cited are not the basis of my opinion, but support it. There is plenty of academic literature on the topic of racial profiling in American police forces. The third link you quote has about 40 academic studies. With respect to the BBC article, the study they cite was compiled from the police's own records.

Terra has finally made a good point (after I made it first): for this sort of study to be valid, it has to draw from a small region (in order to get meaningful statistical quantities -- there's no point in finding that a mean if it is swamped by the standard deviation). (Now Terra's contribution[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] In turn, one must not extrapolate to larger regions. The studies I have linked to cover the largest cities in the country. In total, one can conclude that in any of the 40 largest cities in the country, one can expect to find that black people are between 2 and 10 times more likely to be wrongly hassled by a cop. Keep in mind that most people in the US live in a major city. There are probably outliers in rural areas, but they still don't detract from the claim that most cops are assholes.

Terra: Dave Chappelle is a very funny black American comedian. You've probably seen him in some American movies even if you don't recognize the name.