WEBVTT - How Do We Define 'Suspicious Behavior' Without Bias? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.000 Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:09.840 Lauren Vogel bomb here. We live in the age of 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.119 if you see something, say something. What started as a 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.160 public anti terrorism campaign in the wake of the September 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.200 eleventh attacks has morphed into a state of vigilance for 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.200 any kind of suspicious behavior, and sometimes it pays off. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.880 In For example, a day after twenty nine people were 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.360 injured in a string of New York City bombings, two 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.760 men saw a suspicious bag with wires sticking out of 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.159 it left on a dumpster in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.720 alerted police, which used robots to disarm five pipe bombs. 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.640 Later that night, another nine one one call led police 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:42.840 to a man sleeping in a tavern doorway who turned 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.000 out to be the bomber. But for every report of 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.920 suspicious activity that leads to an arrest, there are many 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.040 others that are, unfortunately not based on any kind of 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:56.400 criminal act, but on bias. Airline passengers of Arab descent 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.080 have been pulled from flights or not allowed to board 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.120 when fellow passed a Jer's notified flight attendance of suspicious 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.959 behavior that included reading the news on their phone. People 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.160 of color are routinely followed by store security personnel or 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.440 even asked to leave if they haven't bought anything a 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:16.200 k a shopping wall black, and most recently, Starbucks landed 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.080 in hot water after one of its store managers in 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.959 Philadelphia called the police on two black men waiting for 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.679 a friend. The men were handcuffed and escorted from the 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.360 cafe for behavior asking to use the bathroom and not 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.679 buying anything that witnesses said would never have drawn attention 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.959 if they had been white, which made us wonder if 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.040 ordinary Americans have been tasked by law enforcement to speak 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.479 up when they see something, then what's the definition of 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.800 something and how can they check our racial or ethnic 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.160 biases when making mental calculations of who and what is 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.760 truly suspicious. We spoke with Sergeant Robert Parsons, the public 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.640 information officer for the Dunwoodie Police Department outside of Atlanta, Georgia. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.600 When he and his fellow police officers talk with community 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.400 members about reporting suspicious activity, they start with this message, 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:08.280 people aren't suspicious, behavior is suspicious, Parsons said, context is 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.320 really important. Just because someone's walking down the street and 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.799 you may not recognize that person, it doesn't mean that 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.800 they're suspicious. Instead, the Dunwoodie Police and departments nationwide instruct 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.840 community members to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.040 that's indicative of actively planning or committing a crime. Sketchy 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.160 behavior includes someone walking down the street and looking into 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.360 multiple car windows or trying the door handles, an unknown 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:34.959 person trying to forcibly enter a neighbor's house while they're 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.119 out of town, or someone claiming to represent a utility 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.639 or security company without a uniform or an I D. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.040 Parsons says that calls from the community are invaluable and 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.120 that they are often the only way to solve crimes 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.160 like burglaries and car brake ins, but that this value 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.160 only goes for tips that identify clearly suspicious behavior in 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.320 some cases. He says it's undeniable that bias is a factor. 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.639 He said, we have gotten the calls. I don't recognize 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.760 this person. He doesn't live in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, it 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.080 puts the officers in a bad position because we have 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.440 to respond to the calls were given and we have 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.760 to stop people. People rightfully get offended. I'm not walking, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.360 I'm jogging, I'm not doing anything suspicious. We also spoke 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.079 with Reggie Schufford, executive director of the a c l 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.080 U of Pennsylvania, who posits that the risks involved with 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.560 police responding to bias based tips go much further than 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.919 people getting offended. Shufford, who is himself black, said, black 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.680 men in particular live under a constant cloud of suspicion 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.200 and fear. I think that endangers our lives because often 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.119 those situations escalate into violence and we end up dead. 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.280 While a lot of attention over the past few years 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.040 has been focused on the dangers of biased policing, from 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.200 controversial stop and frisk programs to multiple police shootings of 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.280 unarmed black men, Shufford believes that biased reporting of suspicious 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.880 behavior by average citizens is equally troubling. He said, these 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.400 eyewitness accounts of what constitutes suspicious behavior are unreliable precisely 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.240 because we are a culture that's steeped in racial bias. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.280 Much of it is implicit. Sometimes we don't even know 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.400 that we're harboring racial bias, but sometimes it's explicit. Either 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.920 way you look at it, It's dangerous for private citizens 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.680 to use their concept of suspicion to engage the police 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.280 bias training is now mandatory at many police academies and 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.560 police departments nationwide, and Starbucks announced that they will be 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.960 closing all eight thousand of its US stores on May 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.520 twenty nine for an afternoon to educate employees about racial bias. 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.960 But what about educating the general public. Some would like 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.760 to see the police take a more active role. Curtis Read, Jr. 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.880 Is the executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.200 and Diversity, an organization working to make Vermont an attractive 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.440 destination for people of color. For the past fifteen years, 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.200 Read and his group have conducted bias training for state 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.440 and local police, government officials, and business owners in Vermont. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.480 Says Read, police dispatchers are trained to engage callers who 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.440 want the cops to come and check out, for example, 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.440 three black guys standing on the corner. Basically, the dispatcher 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.800 will simply ask what the guys are doing. If they're 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.840 not engaged in any suspicious or criminal behavior, the dispatcher 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.039 will explain that to the caller, declined to send a 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.839 cruiser and offer to transfer them to a supervisor if 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.320 they have more questions. When Red looks at what happened 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.400 at the Starbucks in Philadelphia, He sees a missed opportunity 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.440 for the police to educate community members that being black 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.800 is not a criminal offense. He said, if I were 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.200 the officers sent to that Starbucks, I would have asked 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.000 the manager what criminal behavior were the two black men 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.920 engaged in. I would have asked them was their behavior 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.360 any different than any of the other patrons who frequent 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.000 that Starbucks? Because ultimately it's the perception of the manager 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.320 that needs to be changed. And who better than these 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.360 officers coming in and asking those very questions Dune what 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.520 he police officer Parsons says that beyond spreading the message 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.600 that people aren't suspicious, behavior is suspicious. The department doesn't 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.039 provide any public education on the role of bias in 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.040 community crime reporting quote, but it may be something that 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.080 we do in the future. Of course, change starts with 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.520 all of us. If you're interested in engaging your own 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.479 implicit biases based on race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.480 and more, and in learning what you can do to 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.719 help take the short online tests offered at Project Implicit. 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.480 It's project by Harvard. Just google it, it'll come right up. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.120 Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.520 Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:43.000 social topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.