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evidence supporting the reasonableness of these beliefs is too pervasive to be dismissed as random or rare, and too persuasive to be disparaged as inconclusive or insufficient.11 In
the report concluded that this disparate treatment "engender[s] feelings of fear, resentment, hostility, and mistrust by minority citizens." See Interim Report 4, 7. Recently, the United States Department of Justice, citing this very evidence, announced that it would appoint an outside monitor to oversee the actions of the New Jersey State Police and ensure that it enacts policy changes advocated by the Interim Report, and keeps records on racial statistics and traffic stops. See Kocieniewski, U. S. Will Monitor New Jersey Police on Race Profiling, N. Y. Times, Dec. 23, 1999, p. A1, col. 6.
Likewise, the Massachusetts Attorney General investigated similar allegations of egregious police conduct toward minorities. The report stated: "We conclude that Boston police officers engaged in improper, and unconstitutional, conduct in the 1989-90 period with respect to stops and searches of minority individuals . . . . Although we cannot say with precision how widespread this illegal conduct was, we believe that it was sufficiently common to justify changes in certain Department practices.
"Perhaps the most disturbing evidence was that the scope of a number of Terry searches went far beyond anything authorized by that case and indeed, beyond anything that we believe would be acceptable under the federal and state constitutions even where probable cause existed to conduct a full search incident to an arrest. Forcing young men to lower their trousers, or otherwise searching inside their underwear, on public streets or in public hallways, is so demeaning and invasive of fundamental precepts of privacy that it can only be condemned in the strongest terms. The fact that not only the young men themselves, but independent witnesses complained of strip searches, should be deeply alarming to all members of this community." J. Shannon, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Report of the Attorney General's Civil Rights Division on Boston Police Department Practices 60-61 (Dec. 18, 1990).
11 Taking into account these and other innocent motivations for unprovoked flight leads me to reject Illinois' requested per se rule in favor of adhering to a totality-of-the-circumstances test. This conclusion does not, as Illinois suggests, "establish a separate Terry analysis based on the individual characteristics of the person seized." Reply Brief for Petitioner 14. My rejection of a per se rule, of course, applies to members of all races.
It is true, as Illinois points out, that Terry approved of the stop and frisk procedure notwithstanding "[t]he wholesale harassment by certain
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