Looking through some of the data shows that blacks are overrepresented in crime[1] compared to their proportion of the population[2].
What would be the right thing to do? I think that everyone should be treated equally and all have the same rights as anyone else. Given the data I sympathize with a police force that resorts to profiling. There are likely larger social issues at play here, we are seeing symptoms of other problems.
That's a great next question, unfortunately I don't have the data at hand to give you a good answer. I casually looked for some of this (read: spent a few minutes) and anything I could put together would be an amalgamation of several different sources of information and I'd likely make incorrect inferences from it.
What would be the right thing to do? I think that everyone should be treated equally and all have the same rights as anyone else. Given the data I sympathize with a police force that resorts to profiling. There are likely larger social issues at play here, we are seeing symptoms of other problems.
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_plan...
[2] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html