S.C. deputy filmed slamming teen girl out of desk, dragging her away

That Doug Glanville thing fascinated me when he first wrote something about it. The cop pulled up, parked across the street from his house, walked over and said something like, "Are you shoveling snow to earn some money?" At first, when Glanville saw him pull up, he thought he was lost and needed help -- because it wasn't his jurisdiction. He quickly realized he was being profiled.

It's obvious profiling, but there was nothing illegal about it. A cop can walk up to anyone and ask them anything.

The thing is, you don't have to answer. If the cop has no probable cause / warrant or reasonable suspicion that you are breaking a law, there isn't a thing he can legally do to you (doesn't mean cops won't be abusive anyhow and violate your 4th amendment rights, and black people find this out way more than others). Either he arrests you for something (an illegal arrest if there is no probable cause), in which case you still don't have to talk to him and are entitled to an attorney. Or he has to leave you alone and you don't have to answer his questions.

In the case of Glanville, he told the cop it was his home, and the cop left, and as that story says, Glanville followed through by making an issue of it -- because he knew it was a case of a black guy getting profiled by a cop.

What I would love to know is the "what if?". ... if he had just told the cop that it was none of his business and kept on doing what he was doing. Because if I am shoveling my driveway and a cop pulls up and asks me what I am doing, that would be my exact reaction.

You have to figure better than even odds that it doesn't end well for Glanville if he had handled it that way. But legally, that cop can ask whatever he wants. And Glanville didn't have any obligation to justify his presence there or answer his questions.