In an effort to stop possible racial profiling, our lawmakers have passed legislation mandating police to record the race of every driver they stop.
Yeah, I had to read that several times to make any sense of it at all, too. But it gets better.
In the past, officers could only cite people for not wearing seatbelts if they were pulled over for something else first. (Follow me, there is a connection here). As a result of a measure in our state budget, officers may now simply pull over anyone they suspect of not wearing a seatbelt, at any time. I can hear the conversation now:
"Say, we've pulled over 35 drivers of XYZ minority out of 97 total, Officer Partner. We need to pull over another 43 Caucasian drivers to get our percentage of minorities under the state-mandated 25%."
"Let's get to it!"
Ah, but it gets even better.
The Republicans voted against the measure, "in part because the plan could cost local police agencies as much as $10 million for new equipment." Excuse me? What new equipment? For once, the Democrats said something that made sense - "local police could also choose cheaper ways of sending the data to the state that wouldn't require buying new technology".
It's called a postage stamp.
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