Put Down The Clippers and Step Away From The Shave Cream, Now!

The epicenter of crime in the black community, at least according to the Orange County Florida Sheriff's Department, is the neighborhood barbershop.

I guess anytime there is a group of more than two or three black men gathered in one place, brandishing weapons - in this case, hair clippers and scissors - and with a commonality of purpose - getting a little taken off the top - it all adds up to criminal activity.

Last year, more than a dozen Orange County deputies, all heavily armed,  stormed nine neighborhood barbershops in Pine Hills, Florida, an unincorporated area just outside of Orlando,  in a series of raids aimed at uncovering criminal activity. To their credit the deputies did make a total of 37 arrests, although 34 of those arrested were charged with heinous crime of "barbering without a license," which in the state of Florida, and probably everywhere else for that matter, is a misdemeanor.

To make matters even worse, the raids were conducted without warrants. Why bother with going before a judge to show probable cause that a crime is being committed? The heck with the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures! Instead just do like the Orange County Sheriff's department and tag along with inspectors from the Florida Department of Professional Regulation who have the authority to enter barbershops and hair salons to check for licensing violations.

Those arrested during the raids were taken out in handcuffs and transported to the county jail.

The barbers and their customers, who are predominately black, are still fuming about the way they were treated in this unprecedented police action. Several of those caught up in the sweep complained of being forced to lay on barbershop floors handcuffed for as long as an hour as deputies searched the salons.

According to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, arresting people for barbering without a license is "nearly unheard of" in Florida. As a matter of fact the paper reported that in the last 10 years there have only been three other arrests and jail bookings for barbering without a license in the entire state.

While not apologizing for the heavy-handed, civil-rights trampling police action, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings did admit that his deputies may have made some mistake. Still, he noted that the raids only targeted shops that were suspected of having unlicensed barbers.

A similar raid of black barbershops in California ended with the city of Moreno Valley being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union claiming civil rights violations. That case is still pending.

As one of the Orange County barbers targeted in the raid said: "There's a fine line between doing your job and violating a person's civil rights."

Tell the Orange County Florida Sheriff's Department and county officials to stop their unconstitutional squeeze on black barbershops and call a halt to these ill conceived raids.

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