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| 2 NY Officials Back Terror Check Profiling |
| 2005-08-02 |
| NEW YORK (AP) - Arabs should be targeted for searches on city subways, two elected officials said, contending that the police department has been wasting time with random checks in its effort to prevent terrorism in the transit system. The city began examining passengers' bags on subways and buses after the second bomb attack in London two weeks ago. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said several times that officers will not racially profile. But over the weekend, state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police should be focusing on those who fit the "terrorist profile." "They all look a certain way," said Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. "It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism." And on Tuesday, City Councilman James Oddo, a Republican from Staten Island, said that his emotions relating to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack by Middle Eastern men in hijacked airplanes caused him to publicly declare his support for Hikind's statements. "The reality is that there is a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life," he said. "Young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror, and we should keep those facts prominently in our minds and eyes as we attempt to secure our populace." Oddo commended Hikind for "rushing headlong against the strong undertow of political correctness." Hikind said he planned to introduce legislation allowing police to racially profile, and Oddo said he intended to introduce a resolution in the City Council supporting the measure. But the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant because "terror comes in all shapes and sizes, and certainly there's no legislation or system that's going to identify terrorists on the spot." |
| Posted by:Mrs. Davis |
| #1 . . . the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant because "terror comes in all shapes and sizes . . . He's right. There are fat muslims, and skinny ones, and darker ones, and lighter ones and saudi ones, and yemeni ones, and ethiopian ones and . . . |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2005-08-02 21:28 |