State of Oregon v. Jesse Caufield

     In the case of Jesse Caufield, Jesse was wrongly accused of holding Cooper Chase at gun point and stealing her car and wallet based on officer Nighthorse's stereotypical view of African Americans. Officer Nighthorse already had a preconcieved notion that the suspect must black because the victum said the man with the gun appeared to be Afican American so he immediately excluded out every race except for African Americans even though other races have darker skin that could resemble an African American in the dark. The officer also had a negative attitude against this specific race because he said, "these kinds of kids have no respect for the law' and 'it was crap- just people hiding behind race." Based on these two examples Jesse Caufield fell into the trap of stereotyping. Caufield was automatically made into a criminal in Nighthorses eyes because he was an African American, when in reality Caufield was a hardworking college student going to school to be a social worker. If the officer looked further into the case without immediately making judgments, he would have realized that Jesse was an innocent person trying to be a good citizen. Unfortunately stereotyping is everywhere even in our legal system where everyone is supposed to be treated equally.