Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL) Copyright: 2001 St. Petersburg Times Contact: 490 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 Website: http://www.sptimes.com/ Forum: http://www.sptimes.com/Forums/ubb/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi Author: Fernando Ojeda Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n028/a09.html IT'S EASY TO BULLY THE VOICELESS I wish to respond to two letters concerning support of governmental racial profiling (The targeting of certain suspects makes sense and If the profile fits, Jan. 5). I want to determine if the letter writers are sincere in their posture. Most white-collar crimes are committed by affluent, professional, white males. They often commit their crimes in their corporate environments. Knowing this, should we support random sieges (by federal agents) into the corporate world, seizure of computers, documents, etc., in order to find potential perpetrators of corporate crimes? Every so often we have cases of random violence that seem to follow a pattern. A loner, disgruntled by some perceived or real injustice, arms himself with semiautomatic weapons and handguns and goes to an office building, a high school cafeteria or a McDonald's and opens fire on innocent people. More often than not they are white males. Do we create a racial profile and begin confiscating guns from homes? Of late, we have had a share of unethical and criminal activity engaged in by judges, mostly male and white. Do we create a profile for these individuals and arrest them arbitrarily while we search for possible indiscretions and/or criminal activities? Miami has had a rash of cases of corrupt police officers dealing in illegal activities tied to drug trafficking. Will there be a profile created to intercept future cases of corruption in the force? How about the abuses of taxpayers' contributions by the Pentagon as it supports illegally inflated contracts by contractors? Where's that profile? The point I'm trying to make here is that the letter writers find it easy and convenient to bully those individuals in society who are voiceless, who have no political clout, people who can be trampled upon indiscriminately. I wonder if they would afford the same level of tolerance to the governmental infringement into the lives of the powerful, the rich or white males in general. Would they support this infringement based on a predetermined profile? If they do, I applaud them. If they don't, I simply have to conclude that their posture is corrupt and hypocritical. Fernando Ojeda, Dunedin - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D