Los Angeles police plan to map Muslims

[motivez]

Civil rights advocates criticized plans by the Los Angeles Police Department to map the city's Muslim communities, calling it racial profiling.

The LAPD's counterterrorism bureau plans to identify Muslim enclaves in order to determine which might be likely to become isolated and susceptible to "violent, ideologically based extremism," said Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing on Thursday.

"We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities," said Downing, who heads the counterterrorism bureau.

Downing said the plan is still in its early stages, but the LAPD wants to work with a Muslim partner and intends to have the data assembled by the University of Southern California's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis.

Downing testified about the plan before a U.S. Senate committee on Oct. 30.

In his testimony, Downing said his bureau wanted to "take a deeper look at the history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socioeconomic status and social interactions" of the city's Muslim communities.

There are an estimated 500,000 Muslims in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.

On Thursday, several Muslim groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sent Downing a letter expressing "grave concerns" about the program.

"Singling out individuals for investigation, surveillance, and data-gathering based on their religion constitutes religious profiling that is just as unlawful, ill-advised and deeply offensive as racial profiling," said the letter.

It was signed by representatives of the ACLU of Southern California; Muslim Advocates, a national association of Muslim lawyers; the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The plan "basically turns the LAPD officers into religious political analysts, while their role is to fight crime and enforce the laws," said Hussam Ayloush, head of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who signed the letter.

However, another group, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, is considering working with the LAPD on the project.

"We will work with the LAPD and give them input, while at the same time making sure that people's civil liberties are protected," said Salam al-Marayati, the council's executive director.

Print Story: Los Angeles police plan to map Muslims on Yahoo! News

What a horrible idea, I can understand the motivations he listed of wanting to better understand the communities and whatnot, but there are ways to accomplish that without the police keeping a fucking list of people who happen to be of a certain religious persuasion.. .. like, you know, going and talking to community leaders.

I have to agree with the ACLU's concerns about the program, this sounds like something that would have happened in Nazi Germany () or Saudi Arabia or someplace with a minority religious sect that the state wants to keep tabs on.. but not America... and certainly not liberal California.

Hopefully the program is stopped in its tracks before it even gets started.

[7960]

good intent...........HORRIBLE plan.

[RMNIXON]

I must agree with Motivez on this one. You can have a general notion of where they are concentrated without mapping them out. The whole idea of community outreach is to get the trust of the more moderate Muslims so they will rat out any bad elements that might begin to work out of a given location. I would not map anything out without cause.

Holy hell, this is disturbing

So far I think all you guys have hit the nail on the head. This may have well intended consequences but this is a ridiculous and abhorent plan. Surely this will not happen in the USA?

Community relations does NOT mean mapping all the muslim people in a city and where they live, it means reaching out to the community, building relationships between law enforcement and citizens. This would do nothing more than drive a wedge between police officers and the community they are sworn to protect.

[Stylerod]

It was shelved yesterday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A police plan to map out Muslim communities, a proposal that civil rights groups sharply criticized as racial and religious profiling, has been shelved, a police spokeswoman said Wednesday.

LAPD Shelves Muslim Mapping Plan

[AVengeance]

They just put it forth to test the waters. They'll be "mapping" wacko gun owners, superpatriots, and Christians before too much longer.

[RMNIXON]

LAPD redraws map idea

Chief William Bratton now must try a different tack, starting with being clear about his intent: He must make the case that the police are trying to build a healthy relationship with the Muslim community.

Daily Breeze editorial

If the Los Angeles Police Department had initially announced it was reaching out to an underserved community, such a pronouncement would have been met with appreciation.
People would have greeted the news with wonder at how different it was from the LAPD of years gone by, which kept dossiers on law-abiding citizens and used violent tactics against minorities with great frequency.

But instead of talking about "community outreach," the department chose to use the buzzword "mapping" in regard to the city's Muslim communities. The result was a predictable uproar.

Speaking before a U.S. Senate panel, LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Downing casually used the word "mapping" when he mentioned that the department was joining with a then-unidentified academic institution and looking for a Muslim partner on the project.

The department on Wednesday announced that the "mapping" idea had been shelved in the wake of criticism from Muslim leaders and the American Civil Liberties Union. Downing should have anticipated the the response.

He might as well have said the LAPD would roust all the Muslim households and return the department to the days when goon squads were tolerated.

In recent days, the LAPD's top brass tried unsuccessfully to use the word "partnership" instead of mapping before abandoning the plan altogether.

With the anti-police activists aroused, there was no choice.

Chief William Bratton now must try a different tack, starting with being clear about his intent: He must make the case that the police are trying to build a healthy relationship with the Muslim community in an effort to gauge the influence of violent extremists.

"We believe 99.999 percent of our Muslim population are integrated and healthy and spirited and aligned with us in protecting American values," Downing said this week. "But we believe there are isolated communities that can use support."

The essence of community policing is knowing where there are large concentrations of Muslims and establishing relationships in those communities - something the LAPD needs to do with every segment of the population in order to understand its culture, needs and challenges.

The goal is to root out terrorism, just as we do with gangs and crime, by making positive connections with the community. Community policing has helped neighborhoods with active gangs connect with police in ways that are healthy and not combative, and surely this should be the goal for Muslim communities.

Using words with sinister connotations and offering vague explanations of intentions remind us all of the old LAPD. That force doesn't exist anymore and, as we can see from this flap, neither should its evocative and harmful language.

[JaJae]

Changing the verbiage doesn't make the idea any less stupid.

[RMNIXON]

The funny thing is government usually goes overboard with the PC thinking. This time they acted deaf and dumb. I am no Liberal, and if I were in a meeting and somebody suggested anything that sounded like racial profiling I would have raised my hand and said, "The ACLU and the Muslim Community Actvist are gonna go nuts! Rethink this plan!"

[zardook2007]

bad idea ,,, i think

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

They just put it forth to test the waters. They'll be "mapping" wacko gun owners, superpatriots, and Christians before too much longer.

What evidence do you have that suggests this?

[David Octavius]

No police organization - be they local, state or federal - should ever be involved in any time of organized "community outreach" programs, that has bad written all over it. Police organizations are not a charity or some type of community organization to try to understand the culture and motivations of a group (nor should they be) - all they know is protection of law and that is how they are going to approach it. Eventually the outreach program will become a surveillance and profiling program that will only make people more hostile and alienate them - the very thing we don't want.

If they want an understanding as they claim, they need a group who's motivation is only that or else you are asking for trouble.