socrateez
Stoned Philosopher
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 1226
Location: I'm the person to your right.
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 Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:07 pm Post subject: New Jersey Cop, Traffic Profiling Expert |
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This is from last year and lifted from New Jerseys NORML forums but it offers another view into the mind of Law Enforcement. Note His profiling indicators and compare to Barry's described profiling techniques.
| Quote: | When drivers are up to no good, it shows Saturday, November 17, 2007
NorthJersey.com
By Peter J. Sampson and Michel J. Feeney
Staff Writers
Like most motorists, you probably ease off the gas and glance down at the speedometer when you see a police car.
What happens next, though, can signal whether you are among the 13 percent of people who commit crimes, an expert in behavioral profiling told a group of North Jersey police officers this week.
Police from throughout the U.S., as well as Mexico and Russia, have turned to Trooper Shaun Smart of the Ohio State Highway Patrol for tips that can help them pick drug and gun runners off their roadways without crossing the line into illegal profiling.
"From the moment you first see the vehicle to the moment you discount it or pursue it, you are creating a picture," he told officers gathered at the Public Safety Academy in Wayne this week. "Each indicator adds or detracts from your picture. You are trying to paint a masterpiece."
Smart knows a thing or two about identifying suspicious drivers: He's seized more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana, cocaine, black tar heroin, Ecstasy, methamphetamine and other drugs along Ohio's interstates.
Because of that success, his course has become a tool for police in stemming gun and drug trafficking on Route 80, the New Jersey Turnpike and other major thoroughfares in New Jersey, a state once synonymous with racial profiling.
Nowadays, 90 percent of the "significant criminal arrests" made by Ohio troopers are initiated by a change in driving behavior or unusual behavior -- or both -- said Smart, who has taught the principles to judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers around the world.
The key, he said, is to understand why people do what they do, then to make careful observations and assessments that identify what's really going on.
"You're not profiling anything but human behavior," the 17-year veteran told his colleagues.
"Everybody's afraid of the 'P' word," Smart said. "But it's perfectly legal."
Observing the way a vehicle moves or a motorist behaves "eliminates racial profiling," said Passaic County Sheriff's Officer Marty Elphick, one of the program's organizers. "It doesn't matter where they are from or what they look like."
Some drivers become stiff, with arms "locked at 10 and 2," or they try to hide their faces as they pass the officer, Smart explained. Others drift a bit too long in a decelerating mode, go way below the speed limit, speed up again quickly, and even change lanes for no obvious reason other than to try and create as much distance as possible from the officer.
Then there are those who brake violently, change lanes unsafely, tailgate or pull off the highway quickly, Smart said.
A passenger's behavior, such as dropping a visor to check a rear-view mirror or suddenly disappearing from sight, can often be more telling than the driver's actions when making an assessment, he said. Another common behavior is "scrupulous obedience to the traffic laws" -- excessively long turn-signaling, for example, or remaining too long at a stop sign.
"They want the world to know what they're doing is legal," Smart said. "But what they're doing is feeding your picture."
Once a car is pulled over, a new set of criteria kicks in.
A criminal who perceives danger gets a rush of adrenaline, associated with the "fight or flight" response, Smart said. Produced in high-stress situations, it quickens the heart rate, dilates blood vessels and can be detected by a sweaty forehead and palms, throbbing arteries in the neck and temple and other effects, he said.
"When adrenaline zips through your system, you're not thinking -- you're reacting," Smart said. "If you understand how it affects the human body, you will succeed at this job."
Officers should look for anxiety, an inability to calm down and conflicting or unbelievable stories, Smart said. All add to building "a reasonable, articulable suspicion," the standard required in New Jersey to ask for consent to search a vehicle.
Other clues come from the vehicle's appearance: Does it look lived in? Are the occupants using many air fresheners to mask odors? Is the decal supporting U.S. troops on the side instead of the rear? Does a rented car bear a police union tag?
Police in Ohio can search a vehicle without consent but are taught to do so only with reasonable suspicion, so as to not waste time and make unnecessary enemies of the motoring public.
Racial profiling exploded onto the national stage nearly a decade ago, after the New Jersey State Police acknowledged that troopers targeted black and Hispanic drivers for traffic stops. New laws and practices were enacted, and a federal monitor was appointed. Recently, the monitors announced that the department had made remarkable progress in eliminating racial profiling and no longer needed federal supervision.
No matter how much knowledge individual officers have, it's important that departments continue sharing specialized approaches, said Prospect Park Police Chief Frank Franco.
"You never know what tips you might pick up from each instructor," Franco said. "Everyone has different experiences and different ways of doing things."
East Rutherford Detective Chris DeCarlo, who attended the two-day workshop, said the training wasn't just helpful for highway patrolling but also for street patrolling, citing rapid turns and failure to signal as indicators that something might be suspicious.
"It makes you wonder how many people may have gotten over on me," DeCarlo said. "It's going to make [me] look further and dig a little more."
Smart said the techniques can also be used to monitor people at hotels and motels, airports, truck stops and bus stations. They can be used to catch not only drug and weapons traffickers, he said, but also bank robbers, murderers and more common criminals.
It's essential to know who you're dealing with, Smart warned his colleagues, urging them to learn all they can about the three Mexican cartels that control 80 percent of the drugs entering the U.S. and the Canadian traffickers responsible for the most potent hydro-marijuana on the market.
Otherwise, he said, "your enemy is always going to be one step ahead of you." |
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