State starts investigation into possible 'unconstitutional policing' by Boston gang unit

yes, becuz b.u. students never carry drugs or cause fites ?

I’m willing to bet that this youth violence strike force (established in 1997) did not track or target the little shits from West Roxbury who went around beating the hell out of people for kicks in the early 2000s…

One thing they're supposed to do is not "make up facts" when the real "basis" for their suspicion is the target's skin color. If the only basis for suspicion is a person's race, leave them alone. Being hassled by the cops is unpleasant even if they have to admit that you weren't doing anything illegal.

Sorry couldn't link, copying from an email:

Commonwealth v. Michael Robinson-Van Rader, Jr.

Supreme Judicial Court – May 15, 2023

“We emphasize that the equal protection clause provides an independent basis upon which a defendant may rely in pursuing claims of intentional discriminatory application of the law, separate and distinct from the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. We agree with the judge that the new standard we adopted in Long, 485 Mass. at 724-725, to provide a defendant a more accessible path to pursuing an equal protection claim in the context of a motor vehicle stop, is applicable not only to traffic stops, but also to other police investigations such as pedestrian stops.”

FACTUAL BACKGROUND: Police received 911 calls, as well as ShotSpotter notifications of multiple shots fired near Boston Police Headquarters. Witnesses reported seeing two “Black males” wearing “black hoodies” leaving the area where the shots were reported. There was no information about the suspects' age, height, weight, build, hair style, or facial features. Witness and officer reports tracked two suspects matching the “generic” description traveling generally towards the direction of BPDHQ on bicycles. A short time after the shooting, two officers assigned to the Youth Violence Strike Force on patrol in an unmarked cruiser near BPDHQ observed two Black males wearing black hoodies walking in the vicinity of BPDHQ (approximately 1 mile from the scene of the shooting), continuously looking back at it despite no pursuit and light foot traffic in that area. The police exited their vehicle and approached the two males and told them to “hold up a second.” While neither male displayed obvious indicia of hidden firearms—such as noticeably weighted pockets or suspicious bulges—one office asked one of the males whether he had anything on him. The male, J.H., turned sideways in “kind of like a jerk reaction – like as a reflex”, shielding his right hip from view. A patfrisk revealed a firearm in his waistband. During the officer’s encounter with J.H., the other male—defendant Van Rader, continued to look back towards BPDHQ while sweating. A patfrisk of him led to the discovery of a firearm in his pants pocket.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND:Mary Fowler, a professor of mathematics at Worcester State University testified in support of the defendant's argument that the investigatory stop violated his rights to equal protection. She conducted a statistical analysis of the traffic stops the arresting officers had made, which included information about the racial distribution of individuals in the field interrogation and observation reports submitted by the officers during a 20 month period, as well as the estimated percentage of Black residents in their patrol area. She concluded that 90% of the individuals stopped by the officers during that time period were Black and 2% where white, non-Hispanic. “Within the twenty-month period, Fowler testified, Black individuals were more than five times as likely to be stopped as other individuals. Fowler conducted a statistical analysis called an ‘equality of proportions’ test, which indicated that the difference between the frequency of non-Black individuals stopped and the frequency of Black individuals stopped was statistically significant. Fowler explained that the frequency of randomly observing differences that extreme was less than one in 100,000. Accordingly, she concluded that the stops were consistent with racial profiling. After a hearing, the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress finding that the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. He did not reach whether the defendant had made a threshold showing of a discriminatory reason for the stop as the Commonwealth had provided a race-neutral reason for the stop.

HOLDING:a. Reasonable Suspicion

The Court agreed that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk the two males. “[R]easonable suspicion in this case was ‘based on a convergence of supporting factors,’ including the defendant's nervous or evasive behavior, his geographic and temporal proximity to the area of the shooting, the location of a likely flight path, and the ongoing threat to public safety. While the description of the two suspects was, as the judge described it, ‘generic’ and, standing alone, was insufficient to provide reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop, the additional factors narrowed the search for suspects such that the officers did have reasonable suspicion when they stopped the defendant.”

Equal Protection

Under Long, a defendant raising a claim of selective enforcement during a traffic stop has the “…burden to demonstrate that the decision to make the traffic stop was motivated by race or another constitutionally protected class. A defendant may do so by producing ‘evidence upon which a reasonable person could rely to infer that the officer discriminated on the basis of the defendant's race or membership in another protected class.’ The defendant must point to specific facts that support such an inference, which are known to the defendant based on ‘personal knowledge, the defendant's own investigation, evidence obtained during discovery, and other relevant sources.’ A bald allegation of selective enforcement, based only on membership in a constitutionally protected class, would not suffice. If the defendant does raise an inference of discrimination, the burden shifts to the Commonwealth to rebut the inference by establishing a race-neutral reason for the stop.”

Today, the Court announced that “the equal protection standard established in Long for traffic stops applies equally to pedestrian stops and threshold inquiries, as well as other selective enforcement claims challenging police investigatory practices. … In examining a claim of selective enforcement, a reviewing judge must consider the totality of the circumstances surrounding the claim. In the context of police investigations such as pedestrian stops, the totality of the circumstances may include patterns of enforcement actions by the particular officer; the events preceding the investigation, i.e., the reasons the officer decided to target the defendant; the seriousness of the crime being investigated; and whether the defendant's race or ethnicity, or membership in another protected class, was part of a description of the suspect.” (emphasis added; internal citations omitted)

The Court ‘emphasize[d] that the Federal and State constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the laws provide residents of the Commonwealth a degree of protection separate and distinct from the prohibition against unreasonable searches and searches under the Fourth Amendment and art. 14. … That does not mean, however, that the Commonwealth is precluded from explaining why a police officer stopped a motor vehicle or conducted a threshold inquiry. There may be substantial overlap between an inquiry into the reasonableness of a stop and the officer's motivation for stopping a suspect. To be sure, the constitutional basis for the stop is not sufficient, standing alone, to rebut an inference of selective enforcement. … The burden shifts to the Commonwealth to ‘grapple with all of the reasonable inferences and all of the evidence that a defendant presented and would have to prove that the stop was not racially motivated.’” (emphasis in original; internal citations omitted)

Don't they wear cameras now?