Bossip.com

Tyler Perry got very personal with his Facebook fans over the weekend and detailed an incident on his page when he was pulled over for what he considers to be “driving while black.” Outrage over Trayvon Martin’s case sparked Tyler to share his own story of racial profiling involving the Atlanta police, and in looking at his own situation and Trayvon’s, Tyler said racial profiling should be considered a hate crime by the FBI.

Here’s part of what Tyler’s note said:

A few days before President Obama was supposed to speak at my studio, I was leaving the studio, headed to the airport. Most times when I leave the studio I have an unmarked escort. Other times I constantly check in my rearview mirror to be sure that I’m not being followed. It’s a safety precaution that my security team taught me. As I got to an intersection, I made a left turn from the right lane and was pulled over by two police officers. I pulled the car over and put it in park. Then, I let the window down and sat in the car waiting for the officer. The officer came up to the driver’s door and said that I made an illegal turn. I said, “I signaled to get into the turning lane, then made the turn because I have to be sure I’m not being followed.” He said, “why do you think someone would be following you?”

Before I could answer him, I heard a hard banging coming from the passenger window. I had never been in this position before so I asked the officer who was at my window what was going on and why is someone banging on the window like that. He said, “let your window down, let your window down. Your windows are tinted.” As I let down the passenger window, there was another officer standing on the passenger side of the car. He said, “what is wrong with you?” The other officer said to him, “he thinks he’s being followed.” Then, the second officer said, “why do you think someone is following you? What is wrong with you?”

Before I could answer the officer on the passenger side, the one on the driver’s side had reached into the car and started pulling on the switch that turns the car on and off, saying, “put your foot on the brake, put your foot on the brake!” I was so confused as to what he was doing, or what he thought he was doing. It looked like he was trying to pull the switch out of the dashboard. I finally realized that he thought that switch was the key, so I told him that it wasn’t the key he was grabbing. I reached down into the cup holder to get the key, not realizing that the key had a black leather strap on it. As I grabbed it they both tensed up and I dropped it as I heard my mother’s voice from when I was a little boy….

The officer on the driver’s side continued to badger me, “why do you think someone is following you?” I then said, “I think you guys need to just write the ticket and do whatever you need to do.” It was so hostile. I was so confused. It was happening so fast that I could easily see how this situation could get out of hand very quickly. I didn’t feel safe at all. But one officer stopped his questioning and said, “we may not let you go. You think you’re being followed, what’s wrong with you?” At this point, I told him that I wanted to get out of the car. I wanted the passersby to see what was happening.

As I stepped out of the car another officer pulled up in front of my car. This officer was a black guy. He took one look at me and had that “Oh No” look on his face. He immediately took both officers to the back of my car and spoke to them in a hushed tone. After that, one of the officers stayed near his car while one came back, very apologetic.

I said all of that to say this: do you see how quickly this could have turned for the worse?

Tyler went on to say that he obviously knows there are many great police officers and patrolmen that don’t stop people solely based on their color but that doesn’t change the fact that racial profiling is still very much alive, despite any strides that have been made. He also called attention to another case that he said is just as tragic as Trayvon’s.

Another case that I have been screaming at the top of my lungs about, also in Florida, is the case of Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos, a young black man and a young Mexican man. Eight years ago, in Naples, FL, they were both put in the back of Deputy Steve Calkins’ police car and never heard from again.

They were never arrested, never brought to jail. They were put into the back of Deputy Calkins’ car and never heard from again. And to this day Deputy Steve Calkins is a free man.

I guess it’s time to march in Naples now.

RACIAL PROFILING SHOULD BE A HATE CRIME INVESTIGATED BY THE FBI!!!

That way local government can’t make the decision on whether or not these people get punished.

Unfortunately, we’d still have to trust that the FBI wouldn’t turn a blind eye to these incidents.

Do you think racial profiling will ever be put on the same level as a hate crime?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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By B. Hutson

It looks like Allen Iverson was feeling himself a little too much; so much in fact that he had no problem putting a police officer in check.  The former NBA superstar, who currently plays in the Turkish Basketball League for the Beşiktaş, was pulled over by Atlanta police in a car that he was riding in last week for a traffic violation.

The car, a grey Lamborghini that was driven by Antwuan Clisby, was stopped for changing lanes without signaling. Clisby couldn’t produce any documentation for the vehicle, which the officer found belonged to Iverson when he scanned the identification number of the vehicle. The tags for the car expired in 2009. Clisby told the officer his passenger needed to leave the vehicle to eat dinner. When the officer said no one was permitted to leave until his investigation was complete, Iverson berated the officer, according to CNN.

“I’m the (expletive) passenger,” he said.

In the middle of his explicit-filled tirade against the officer, Iverson made it plain that he was unfazed when he was told that the car would be towed.

“Take the vehicle, I have 10 more,” he said. “Police don’t have anything else (expletive) to do except (expletive) with me. Do you know who I am?”

According to the officer’s report, Iverson carried on for the next 20 minutes about who he was. The officer replied, “It really doesn’t matter who you are. You tried to conceal your vehicle with a fake drive-out tag due to you not paying for your tags.”

In response, Iverson scuffed, “I make more money than you will in 10 years.”

But apparently, seeing his vehicle told made him have a change of heart. He later “came back and apologized for disrespecting the police,” according to the police report. “He stated he was just upset about his car.”

(AJC) — Some Atlanta police officers and ranking members of the force seem to be unfamiliar with law and constitutional protections that limit what they can do during a raid, according to a Citizen Review Board report released Friday.   The CRB director reviewed interviews and records the board collected during the investigation of 12 complaints filed by patrons and employees of the Atlanta Eagle after APD vice officers and members of the Red Dog unit raided it in September 2009.  The report questioned claims by officers that they remembered little from that night and said some of the tactics the officers used violated state law and the U.S. Constitution.  The board, created in 2007 after the fatal shooting of an Atlanta woman in her home during a botched drug raid, recommended in a letter to APD Chief George Turner that officers be given more training, especially in the area of Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches.  “They genuinely believed that it was proper to place all of the patrons on the floor and frisk them because of officer safety considerations,” director Cristina Beamud wrote in the report to the board. “This is simply not the law… Officers need reminders about the limits of their authority.”

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