- Feb 5, 2002
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BOGOTÁ, Colombia (CNS) — Many law enforcement officers associate Catholic imagery and symbols with criminality in the U.S. Latino community, a historian researching the American Southwest said.
In court records, law enforcement officers testify to stopping drivers by establishing “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity due to Catholic symbols or objects on their cars, Daisy Vargas, a historian and professor of religious studies at the University of Arizona, told Catholic News Service Nov. 29 during a three-day theology conference in Bogotá.
She said that possessing images of Catholic saints, clutching prayer cards or hanging rosaries from rear-view mirrors have been cited in legal disputes to justify vehicle searches and even arrests.
A 2011 federal case in New Mexico stated that the presence of a rosary in a car “aroused suspicion” and justified a vehicle search since the involved officer’s “training and experience indicates that contraband couriers often keep religious articles on their vehicles to appear law-abiding and religious.”
Continued below.
catholicreview.org
In court records, law enforcement officers testify to stopping drivers by establishing “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity due to Catholic symbols or objects on their cars, Daisy Vargas, a historian and professor of religious studies at the University of Arizona, told Catholic News Service Nov. 29 during a three-day theology conference in Bogotá.
She said that possessing images of Catholic saints, clutching prayer cards or hanging rosaries from rear-view mirrors have been cited in legal disputes to justify vehicle searches and even arrests.
A 2011 federal case in New Mexico stated that the presence of a rosary in a car “aroused suspicion” and justified a vehicle search since the involved officer’s “training and experience indicates that contraband couriers often keep religious articles on their vehicles to appear law-abiding and religious.”
Continued below.
Wearing a rosary can make a Latino a target for police, historian says - Catholic Review
Many law enforcement officers associate Catholic imagery and symbols with criminality in the U.S. Latino community, a historian researching the American Southwest said.
catholicreview.org
