How to determine a suspicious person

How to determine a suspicious person? It probably won’t be this easy. (Statement T)

Social networks like NextDoor and Facebook, some say, are magnets for racial profiling. It’s not the networks themselves that are the problem, of course. One recent neighborhood incident raises questions about race and how it plays into suspicion among property owners …

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Anyone who pays attention knows that neighborhoods with strong crime watch groups and volunteer patrols are safer. Police have told us, as they have told you at your crime watch meetings, that they can’t fight crime alone, that strong volunteer crime watch groups with eyes on the streets are essential.

Participate in your neighborhood’s VIP (volunteer in patrol) group, they say. If you see something, say something, they say. Communication is key, they tell us. And communication is easier, information more accessible, than ever. A few years back Advocate published a cover story about the role of Facebook, NextDoor.com, WordPress and other blog platforms, e-newsletters and all digital things’ role in keeping both your property and person safe.

“Along with other forms of digital interaction, organizations use Facebook to mobilize meetings and movements, reunite lost pets with owners, alert residents to prowlers and track down wanted criminals, to name a few. Social media can forge relationships, improve efficiency, boost business and promote safety within communities. Of course, like any technology, it comes with a few pitfalls …”, we noted at the time.

If you belong to a digital neighborhood network, you surely have encountered said pitfalls along with questions such as, “What constitutes suspicious activity?” Or “How does one recognize a suspicious person or vehicle?” Simply, the Dallas Police provide a list of things that might warrant a call to 911, which I have pasted at the bottom of this post. Scroll down if you want to skip right to it.

But sometimes it can seem as if a person is considered suspicious because of the way they look. And when that happens, it inevitably causes problems.

Neighbors in Merriman Park/University Manor are in the midst of a very public squabble (public, because the Observer’s Eric Nicholson wrote a story about the whole thing) due to an incident I (and I am sure many of you) find all too familiar.

It began with an email from the MP/UM crime watch chair Donna Mason. I know Donna for two main things: She sends me angry emails every time I refer to MP/UM as “Lake Highlands.” She has the world’s most adorable cat. I find her a strong and blunt yet reasonable and well-meaning person, for what it’s worth.

Mason’s email began typically enough, with a reminder that there had been a series of garage and car break-ins in the neighborhood. She urged recipients to be alert for “suspicious behavior.” She makes clear in said email that the simple presence of “teens” in an alley is suspicious activity. Teens do not belong in alleys, she notes.

Then there was this paragraph:

“Yesterday my husband noted a couple of black teens sitting on the curb in front of our home on Fenton and he called 911. The police came and ended up putting them in the backseat of their police car and drive off. This does not necessarily mean they were taken to jail.  Sometimes, if the police feel they may be suspicious but have no outstanding warrants, they will simply take them out of the neighborhood, telling them they need to move on. We do not know what the circumstances were but happy to get them out of the neighborhood and on notice that the police will be called if they are behaving suspiciously.”

Turned out the teens did not have warrants and were not breaking any laws — still they were escorted away in the back of a squad car.

It did not sit well with some of Mason’s neighbors, including Tracy Everbach, a journalism professor and former Dallas Morning News reporter, Nicholson tells us. In fact, he writes, it “opened a can of worms with a bottom Merriman Park seems unlikely to ever reach.”

“[Everbach] wondered what the Masons could have possibly found so threatening about two kids sitting on a curb if not for their race: ‘I seriously doubt if it was two white kids with blonde hair [that] he would have called 911.'” 

Neighbors then took to NextDoor.com to debate the issue.

Nicholson points out that this sort of situation is familiar far and wide.

The New York Times reported that complaints of NextDoor becoming “a magnet for racial profiling” have been been pouring into the company, prompting it to rethink the way it handles reports of suspicious activity or people. Soon, the site plans to require users to fill out a form identifying clothing or other descriptors so that people won’t solely be identified by race.

Here’s that NYT article.

Mason told Nicholson that her neighbor was making much ado about nothing.

Sometimes, race is a useful way of describing someone who needs to be identified, and we should feel comfortable including a person’s race in our description of him or her — it’s fair.

That said, I could share dozens of incidents from my Lake Highlands neighborhood or my parents’ East Dallas neighborhood that could arguably be considered casting unfair suspicion on a person, possibly due to race.

Like we argue that maybe a gate or wall should be built at the entrance of our subdivision to prevent apartment dwellers walking through our neighborhood to get to the bus stop or elsewhere. We wonder whether the kids going door-to-door fundraising for their football team are legit or casing us for a future home invasion. We work ourselves into a tizzy over apartment people parking their cars on our side streets.

Those at the center of aforementioned discussions, are almost always black. But when someone raises questions like Everbach did in this case, she is told that she is the one making it about race, that this is in no way about race. There are black homeowners in our neighborhood, so how is it even possible? That sort of thing. It is true. There are black homeowners. And we do sometimes complain about white apartment dwellers who park their vehicles on our street. So, touché. 

However, I would still like to put forth a couple of anecdotal morsels for thought.

When we first moved to Lake Highlands, my 6-foot tall, white, shaggy haired, often shabbily dressed teenaged son would walk the streets quite a bit, and no one ever posted his picture on Facebook or NextDoor with the note: “Might be nothing, but, in light of recent break ins, just thought we should keep an eye on this young man, as I don’t recognize him as someone who belongs in the neighborhood.”  However, that is exactly what someone once posted when a black man of similar age and build walked down the street.

I often jog the streets of Lake Highlands or Lakewood before dawn, frequently alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with a friend who is a black male. It made me think a lot about life the time he told me that he did not have the luxury of being able to run in the morning alone. He had to run with me, or another white person, he said, lest the neighbors call the police.

 

Here is how the Dallas Police Department defines suspicious persons or activities:

Persons monitoring areas, entrances to buildings or buildings
Persons pacing back and forth who appear to be dazed or confused
Persons speaking incoherently
Persons wandering in residence halls or buildings that appear to have no legitimate purpose
Unauthorized persons in restricted or sensitive areas
Persons requesting sensitive information, building/HVAC plans, water, electrical, telecommunications locations, etc.
Persons wearing clothing not consistent with weather conditions (i.e. person(s) wearing full length trench coats with boots in 70 degree weather)
Persons abandoning packages, backpacks, briefcases in unusual areas, such as high traffic/high populated areas, i.e.: sporting events, lectures, common areas, etc.
Persons attempting to access utility rooms
Multiple persons who appear to be working in consort, committing any of the above
Unusual powders or liquids/droplets/mists/clouds, especially found near intake/HVAC systems or enclosed spaces
Dead animals/birds, fish, insects
Unexplained/unusual odors. Smells may range from fruity/flowers to sharp/pungent, garlic/horseradish-like, bitter almonds, peach kernels, and newly mown grass/hay
Unusual/unscheduled spraying or discovery of spray devices or bottles

Suspicious Vehicles:

Abandoned vehicles, or unfamiliar parked vehicles, especially near sensitive areas, high traffic/populated areas, common areas, etc.
Unexpected/unfamiliar delivery trucks
Vehicles containing suspicious persons, parcels or materials
A group of individuals sitting in a parked vehicle that appear to monitoring pedestrian behavior
Vehicles arriving and being left at odd hours, at odd locations
Unusual powders or liquids/droplets/mists/clouds leaking or spilling from vehicles