I'll put it right out front, the problem is profiling.
The recent and horrible crime that happened a few days ago in California really makes me mad. Now the police dept. is saying there were "red flags", and that they may have missed a chance to pick this person up before it happened.
But instead what were they doing? The police are watching brown people. Stopping and frisking brown people. Throwing brown people in jail for having a joint in their pocket. Listening to phone calls of people named "Abdoul." Pulling brown people over and stealing their money.
All this does not protect our safety, it destroys the fabric of our society. Law enforcement in collusion with a for profit prison system is as bad as the worst nightmare of George Orwell. The reason this Elliot guy wasn't picked up is simple: the police everywhere, all over the country are profiling for easy hits on poor minorities.
We can look at the data and easily see that white people do not face the same scrutiny from police as brown people. Why is this so hard? When will our tax money be used for the purpose which it was intended?