I’m not surprised to hear about the New York City Police Department extending its stop-n-frisk behavior to upscale joints like Barneys when they falsely arrested 19-year old African American Trayon Christian, after he legally bought a $350 Ferragamo belt from the retailer.
But since we now know the NYPD “periodically” visits Barneys to nab credit card fraudsters, what if we hypothesized that police commanders shift their Barney’s Patrol personnel to other tasks like building better community relations in relatively high-crime neighborhoods? What if more drug kingpins or violent felons were snatched as a result of this outreach?
Now let’s say that Christian actually used a stolen credit card to purchase his expensive belt…
Murders and upscale retail credit card fraud are both unacceptable crimes, but which kind of crime could you live with more if faced with task of prioritization?
I suppose the answer depends on who you are, where you shop and where you live…
song currently stuck in my head: “salt peanuts” – dizzy gillespie & his all-stars
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