Pubdate: Wed, 15 Aug 2001
Source: Naples Daily News (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Naples Daily News.
Contact:  http://www.naplesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/284
Note: Note: Publisher prints several newspapers - please indicate 
which newspaper in LTEs.
Author: Brendan Farrington, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

BLACK OFFICERS DISCUSS PROFILING, RACE ISSUES AT ANNUAL MEETING

MIAMI - The word 'yes' rumbled through the ballroom as a group of 
about 300 black police officers were asked if they had personal 
experience with racial profiling.

Afterward, Doris Byrd described an experience her son recently had 
driving back to college. He was pulled over for not having his lights 
on during a misty rain.

"The officer had a right to stop him, but the first thing he asked 
when he stopped him was 'Do you have any drugs in the car?" said 
Byrd, a sergeant with the Chicago Police Department and chairwoman of 
the National Black Police Association.

She called it a case of "driving while black," an issue she said was 
most important to her as the group holds its annual conference.

Officers will also be addressing discrimination issues that not only 
involve how black officers are treated, but also how law enforcement 
treats black communities.

"If the police officers are not getting equity in the workplace, how 
are they going to dispense equity in the community?" said Dallas 
Police Sgt. Preston Gilstrap, the association's southern regional 
president.

Training sessions will help officers better work with minority 
communities, said Ron Hampton, the group's executive director and a 
former Washington D.C. police officer.

While some might assume that black officers already would be 
sensitive to the policing needs of black communities, association 
officials said officers are trained by institutions that often are 
not.

Hampton said the conference gives officers a "twist" to traditional 
training that helps them provide a more humanitarian service to their 
communities.

"We want to make sure in the process of protecting our people, we are 
not policing them," Hampton said. "We need to clean some of the dust 
out of their heads from the police academy."

The group also pushes to make sure blacks have opportunities to work 
and advance in law enforcement.

"There was a time when blacks couldn't be police officers, there was 
a time when black officers couldn't arrest whites, there was a time 
when black officers couldn't change their clothes at the station, 
there was a time when black police officers couldn't ride in patrol 
cars," said Hampton.

Progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go, he said, 
noting that many departments serving large black communities have few 
black officers or lack black officers in command positions.

Addressing the conference, Miami-Dade Police Assistant Director 
Samuel Williams said officers should make sure they also learn from 
each other.

"There's so much information and so much knowledge that sits in this 
room alone," he said. "Take back from here the love, the wisdom, the 
knowledge of this networking ... and bring it to your community."
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