Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. We live in the age of
Speaker 1: if you see something, say something. What started as a
Speaker 1: public anti terrorism campaign in the wake of the September
Speaker 1: eleventh attacks has morphed into a state of vigilance for
Speaker 1: any kind of suspicious behavior, and sometimes it pays off.
Speaker 1: In For example, a day after twenty nine people were
Speaker 1: injured in a string of New York City bombings, two
Speaker 1: men saw a suspicious bag with wires sticking out of
Speaker 1: it left on a dumpster in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They
Speaker 1: alerted police, which used robots to disarm five pipe bombs.
Speaker 1: Later that night, another nine one one call led police
Speaker 1: to a man sleeping in a tavern doorway who turned
Speaker 1: out to be the bomber. But for every report of
Speaker 1: suspicious activity that leads to an arrest, there are many
Speaker 1: others that are, unfortunately not based on any kind of
Speaker 1: criminal act, but on bias. Airline passengers of Arab descent
Speaker 1: have been pulled from flights or not allowed to board
Speaker 1: when fellow passed a Jer's notified flight attendance of suspicious
Speaker 1: behavior that included reading the news on their phone. People
Speaker 1: of color are routinely followed by store security personnel or
Speaker 1: even asked to leave if they haven't bought anything a
Speaker 1: k a shopping wall black, and most recently, Starbucks landed
Speaker 1: in hot water after one of its store managers in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia called the police on two black men waiting for
Speaker 1: a friend. The men were handcuffed and escorted from the
Speaker 1: cafe for behavior asking to use the bathroom and not
Speaker 1: buying anything that witnesses said would never have drawn attention
Speaker 1: if they had been white, which made us wonder if
Speaker 1: ordinary Americans have been tasked by law enforcement to speak
Speaker 1: up when they see something, then what's the definition of
Speaker 1: something and how can they check our racial or ethnic
Speaker 1: biases when making mental calculations of who and what is
Speaker 1: truly suspicious. We spoke with Sergeant Robert Parsons, the public
Speaker 1: information officer for the Dunwoodie Police Department outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: When he and his fellow police officers talk with community
Speaker 1: members about reporting suspicious activity, they start with this message,
Speaker 1: people aren't suspicious, behavior is suspicious, Parsons said, context is
Speaker 1: really important. Just because someone's walking down the street and
Speaker 1: you may not recognize that person, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they're suspicious. Instead, the Dunwoodie Police and departments nationwide instruct
Speaker 1: community members to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior
Speaker 1: that's indicative of actively planning or committing a crime. Sketchy
Speaker 1: behavior includes someone walking down the street and looking into
Speaker 1: multiple car windows or trying the door handles, an unknown
Speaker 1: person trying to forcibly enter a neighbor's house while they're
Speaker 1: out of town, or someone claiming to represent a utility
Speaker 1: or security company without a uniform or an I D.
Speaker 1: Parsons says that calls from the community are invaluable and
Speaker 1: that they are often the only way to solve crimes
Speaker 1: like burglaries and car brake ins, but that this value
Speaker 1: only goes for tips that identify clearly suspicious behavior in
Speaker 1: some cases. He says it's undeniable that bias is a factor.
Speaker 1: He said, we have gotten the calls. I don't recognize
Speaker 1: this person. He doesn't live in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 1: puts the officers in a bad position because we have
Speaker 1: to respond to the calls were given and we have
Speaker 1: to stop people. People rightfully get offended. I'm not walking,
Speaker 1: I'm jogging, I'm not doing anything suspicious. We also spoke
Speaker 1: with Reggie Schufford, executive director of the a c l
Speaker 1: U of Pennsylvania, who posits that the risks involved with
Speaker 1: police responding to bias based tips go much further than
Speaker 1: people getting offended. Shufford, who is himself black, said, black
Speaker 1: men in particular live under a constant cloud of suspicion
Speaker 1: and fear. I think that endangers our lives because often
Speaker 1: those situations escalate into violence and we end up dead.
Speaker 1: While a lot of attention over the past few years
Speaker 1: has been focused on the dangers of biased policing, from
Speaker 1: controversial stop and frisk programs to multiple police shootings of
Speaker 1: unarmed black men, Shufford believes that biased reporting of suspicious
Speaker 1: behavior by average citizens is equally troubling. He said, these
Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts of what constitutes suspicious behavior are unreliable precisely
Speaker 1: because we are a culture that's steeped in racial bias.
Speaker 1: Much of it is implicit. Sometimes we don't even know
Speaker 1: that we're harboring racial bias, but sometimes it's explicit. Either
Speaker 1: way you look at it, It's dangerous for private citizens
Speaker 1: to use their concept of suspicion to engage the police
Speaker 1: bias training is now mandatory at many police academies and
Speaker 1: police departments nationwide, and Starbucks announced that they will be
Speaker 1: closing all eight thousand of its US stores on May
Speaker 1: twenty nine for an afternoon to educate employees about racial bias.
Speaker 1: But what about educating the general public. Some would like
Speaker 1: to see the police take a more active role. Curtis Read, Jr.
Speaker 1: Is the executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness
Speaker 1: and Diversity, an organization working to make Vermont an attractive
Speaker 1: destination for people of color. For the past fifteen years,
Speaker 1: Read and his group have conducted bias training for state
Speaker 1: and local police, government officials, and business owners in Vermont.
Speaker 1: Says Read, police dispatchers are trained to engage callers who
Speaker 1: want the cops to come and check out, for example,
Speaker 1: three black guys standing on the corner. Basically, the dispatcher
Speaker 1: will simply ask what the guys are doing. If they're
Speaker 1: not engaged in any suspicious or criminal behavior, the dispatcher
Speaker 1: will explain that to the caller, declined to send a
Speaker 1: cruiser and offer to transfer them to a supervisor if
Speaker 1: they have more questions. When Red looks at what happened
Speaker 1: at the Starbucks in Philadelphia, He sees a missed opportunity
Speaker 1: for the police to educate community members that being black
Speaker 1: is not a criminal offense. He said, if I were
Speaker 1: the officers sent to that Starbucks, I would have asked
Speaker 1: the manager what criminal behavior were the two black men
Speaker 1: engaged in. I would have asked them was their behavior
Speaker 1: any different than any of the other patrons who frequent
Speaker 1: that Starbucks? Because ultimately it's the perception of the manager
Speaker 1: that needs to be changed. And who better than these
Speaker 1: officers coming in and asking those very questions Dune what
Speaker 1: he police officer Parsons says that beyond spreading the message
Speaker 1: that people aren't suspicious, behavior is suspicious. The department doesn't
Speaker 1: provide any public education on the role of bias in
Speaker 1: community crime reporting quote, but it may be something that
Speaker 1: we do in the future. Of course, change starts with
Speaker 1: all of us. If you're interested in engaging your own
Speaker 1: implicit biases based on race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health,
Speaker 1: and more, and in learning what you can do to
Speaker 1: help take the short online tests offered at Project Implicit.
Speaker 1: It's project by Harvard. Just google it, it'll come right up.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: social topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.