INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Donald Trump Believes Profiling Could Have Prevented The Orlando Shooting

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 13:16 PST, Jun 19, 2016

BBC News reports that presumptive Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump, has suggested the U.S. consider utilizing profiling to help prevent crime. Trump wants to use ethnicity, race, and religion to determine whether or not a person is likely to commit a crime before they have a chance to do so. Trump believes that and his interest in a Muslim ban could have prevented the shooting at the gay club in Orlando from happening in the first place.

Critics believe Donald Trump’s plan is a bad one as it would likely alienate Muslims. According to Trump, several other countries have already been able to use profiling to prevent crime. There is no reason why the U.S. couldn’t be doing the same thing.

According to Independent, when Donald Trump first responded to the Orlando shooting he said it would just be “common sense” for authorities to start profiling to prevent crime. He went on to say that he hated the idea of profiling society to prevent crime, but he did not think it was something that could be avoided any longer.

“Well, I think profiling is something that we’re going to have to start thinking about as a country. And other countries do it; you look at Israel and you look at others and they do it and they do it successfully. You know, I hate the concept of profiling. But we have to start using common sense.”

It would appear as if Donald Trump’s response to the aftermath of the shooting carried out by Omar Mateen has had a negative impact on his campaign. Independent reports that his controversial comments are doing damage to his chances in the elections as polls are starting to show Hilary Clinton to have a lead over Trump as the more likely candidate.

Several members of the Republican party have asked Donald Trump to tone down his controversial comments, however, he has no intention of doing so. In fact, Donald Trump responded to these requests by telling Republicans that did not agree with what he had to say to “keep quiet”.

Hispanics and African-Americans have been fighting against police profiling in things that range from traffic stops to questionings about alleged crimes for a long time now. Trump has made it clear that he supports this method of police work and wishes police everywhere in the U.S. would start profiling.

There was a time where the New York Police Department’s Demographics Unit spied on mosques and Muslim around the city of New York with help from the CIA. Databases were created and information regarding where Muslims worked, shopped, lived, and prayed were stored in them. In January of this year, there were two lawsuits settled which stemmed from this surveillance being an invasion of privacy. However, Trump thinks this is something the U.S. should be doing in order to protect everyone from crime.

“You do [it] as they used to do in New York prior to this mayor dismantling,” Trump said.

The Independent reported that 49 percent of respondents favor this type of surveillance and 47 percent oppose this type of practice.

Civil libertarians, Muslims and many others are avidly against Donald Trump’s desire to profile to prevent crime. The individuals who are against profiling feel it is just a way to discriminate based on race, nationality, and religion.

How do you feel about Donald Trump’s interest in using profiling to determine whether or not someone is likely to commit a crime? What exactly would the U.S. government do to someone who “might” commit a crime? Furthermore, would the Orlando shooting really have been prevented if the U.S. had a Muslim ban in place and started profiling to prevent crime?

[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

Share this article: Donald Trump Believes Profiling Could Have Prevented The Orlando Shooting
Donald Trump
More from Inquisitr