This is Unconstitutional Needs to Stop

Posted by Kyle Thomas in English 1 · Giknis · E Band on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 12:43 pm

Hello my name is Kyle Thomas and I go to Science Leadership Academy. I had been assigned a project that is supposed to be talking about problems in the world. I had to choose a topic that I had to do research on and had to do a agent of change which basically is like how was I going to get people's opinions.

My topic that I am going to be talking about is stop and frisk. Stop and frisk is when the police can stop you and pat you down on the outside of your clothing when the police officers believe that you are armed and dangerous. This topic is important to me because I think that it is unconstitutional. This violates the Fourth Amendment because the amendment is talking about the rights of the people. One part says “shall not be violated” and stop and frisk goes against that. It’s a problem right now because it makes people not feel like they are free. For example take a look at this picture right here.

This picture is from The spokesman review and it shows a African American being stop and frisk for no reason. You see Donald Trump and basically when he was talking about stop and frisk in the presidential debate he wanted to make the stop and frisk law be enforced even more in urban areas. So, like it would make African Americans feel uncomfortable/ not safe anymore because now the cops will be checking them for no reason. Also, I believe that this shouldn't be enforced more because that will make kids not be safe no more if they see cops stopping people and checking they probably will make them think “Will this happen to me?”

This picture is from Pinterest and it shows the race percentage of stop and frisk. Young Black Men is 25.6%, Young Latino Men 16%, Young White Men 3.8%. So, there is a big difference in which race gets it the most. I think that this needs to change because I don’t think that cops should assume that African Americans are guilty or up to something the most.

For my agent of chance I would like to interview a cop about this law and ask him some questions to see his/her opinion on this. It would be interesting to me because it will let me see how cops really think about this.

Annotated Bibliography

Comments (5)

Kennedy Fields

Your topic is very interesting. I think you did a good job of explaining what u believe stop and frisk is. I'm looking forward to seeing how your interview plays out. Will they agree, or disagree? I know I've asked my mom about this topic a while ago (you and I had similar perspectives), and she didn't agree at all being that she's a police officer.

Kai Payton

I really like your Blog Post. I also agree that stop and frisk is unconstitutional. The images you used are very relevant to your topic. I'm looking forward to reading your next blog. I wonder what you'll do for your Agent of Change.

Asnain Khan

This is really good! I like all the information you provided to explain what "stop and frisk" is. The pictures you chose are very relevant and explanatory. I like the picture where it gives the statistics of the differents races targeted. Keep up the great work!

Siarra Cummings

I really like the fact you decided to bring up this topic! I think that this is a serious thing and it needs to come to the light on why it's so awful. Especially since they target a specific racial most of the time. Great job on your passion piece! What are you going to do to make sure this problem is known by others? What are you thinking of doing for your agent of change? Are you interested in what makes a cops mindset on to stop these people?

Andrew Cheatley

well…. it hurts to see that this is really happening for no reason. Stop and Frisk really is useless and is just used for prejudice people. I like the pictures you used they really show the effects of what this causes and how it isn't targeted towards white men.