Does just being black give the police "probable cause" to stop you?

The Field Negro education series continues.

So if you are reading this and happen to be black, you can relate to the experience of the Brown brothers in Colorado, recently.

"Two brothers, Benjamin and Ryan Brown, were stopped for DWB (Driving While Black) in Colorado Springs, CO.

 

Ryan, who was a passenger in the car, recorded the so-called routine traffic stop via mobile phone, in which officers gave no cause as to why their vehicle was stopped and the brothers subsequently detained.

 

On Tuesday, Roland Martin and the NewsOne Now Straight Talk panel discussed the disturbing Colorado Springs incident and how vitally important the cell phone recording of the incident was in bringing this injustice to the forefront.

 

As a result of the video, the ACLU of Colorado has taken up the Brown brothers’ case, citing they were handcuffed, searched, then detained without reason or fault.

 

During Tuesday’s NewsOne Now segment, panelist Avis Jones-DeWeever highlighted the ACLU’s Mobile Justice App that can be used to record an incident with law enforcement officers and then send the recording to the organization.

 

From aclu-mo.org:

The ACLU of Missouri Mobile Justice smartphone app was created to empower individuals to hold Missouri law enforcement agencies accountable for their actions. It has four main features:  

Record- allows citizens to capture exchanges between police officers and themselves or other community members in audio and video files that are automatically emailed to the ACLU of Missouri.  

Witness- gives citizens the option to alert nearby Mobile Justice App users when they are stopped by police so that they can move toward the location and document the interaction.

Report- gives citizens the option to provide a more-detailed account of their interactions with police in an incident report, which will be transmitted directly to the ACLU of Missouri.

Panelist Delegate Jay Walker, Chair of Price George’s County House Delegation, had some reservations about recording encounters with law enforcement.

 

He told Martin, host of NewsOne Now, that he was “conflicted” with the notion of citizens recording their encounters with law enforcement, saying, “with social media, everybody is trying to record everything right-away, but you’re going to have to go back to the type of protocol that you have to have with law enforcement when they come along.” [Watch video]

 

So after watching the video, what do you think?