Ethnic Profiling is a double edged sword.
It may be needed in some small dose, but it has to be warranted, and done legally (if possible to do at all)
I can actually see balances of both in action, stereotypes are based on observation most likely, and investigations work off of facts and patterns.
If one out of 5 criteria points is ethnicity, then it makes sense to keep track of it along with all of the other criteria, but tracking past events and just outright stopping people from legal activities based on ethnicity are 2 totally different things.
I think we can all agree the latter would be very very wrong, but the first probably depends oh HOW intrusive it is. I don't mind some degree of tracking or investigation if the potential for a large death toll is very large, but they need to use common sense, and pick their battles and realize not all Muslims are terrorists, not all whites want to bomb things from Montana and not all blacks want to pillage and steal during a riot.
But if they have a checklist they use to cross off or discount certain scenarios, and one of those is based on past evidence or patterns, thats good police work, its pattern finding. But their needs to be some oversight so that it cannot be abused by someone with a racial bias, thats all.
Were all human and bound to get caught up in issues like race from time to time right ? Just realizing that can make a difference if we catch ourselves.