Pubdate: Mon, 18 Mar 2002
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
Copyright: 2002 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Ben Z. Hershberg, The Courier-Journal

ACLU OFFICIAL CALLS PROFILING A WASTE

Aftermath Of Sept. 11 Has Refocused Interest On Screening Measure

Racial and ethnic profiling by police is not only unconstitutional but 
ineffective, a leader of the national battle against the practice said 
yesterday in Louisville.

King Downing, national coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's 
campaign against racial profiling, discussed the issue at the Kentucky 
chapter's annual meeting, at the Louisville Urban League on West Broadway.

He is on tour, Downing said in an interview before yesterday's speech, to 
help promote "Profiles in Injustice," a recent book about racial and ethnic 
profiling that was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was 
written by David A. Harris, a law professor at the University of Toledo, 
and is available at bookstores nationally, Downing said.

Because ethnic profiling has occurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 
attack on the World Trade Center, Downing said, the publication of Harris' 
book made this a good time to make public the problems he sees with such 
profiling.

"Racial profiling is as old as the United States," Downing told his 
audience of about 60 people.

It was part and parcel of the treatment of slaves in this country, Downing 
said, and more recently has been the basis of tens of thousands of police 
traffic and pedestrian stops and other kinds of discriminatory treatment of 
minorities.

"After September 11, we hear profiling is the right thing to do because the 
people on those planes were Arab or South Asian," Downing said.

In research based on police records that indicate the number of times 
illegal drugs or other "contraband" was found in traffic stops, Downing 
said, he's seen time and time again that police have stopped many more 
African Americans than whites -- but have found contraband no more often in 
the vehicles of black people. That means the manpower and expense involved 
in tens of thousands of traffic stops is wasted, Downing said.

That was the case in New York City, Downing said, when experts analyzed 
175,000 traffic stops after the February 1999 killing by police of Amadou 
Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant.

There were six times as many traffic stops of African Americans as of 
whites, Downing said, and police found contraband in 10.5 percent of the 
African Americans' vehicles and 12.6 percent of the whites'.

Based on those statistics, he said, nothing illegal was found in more than 
100,000 instances when African Americans were stopped.

"This is a tremendous waste," Downing said.

That pattern has been repeated in one police jurisdiction after another 
where statistics have been analyzed, Downing said.

Based on that history, he predicted, ethnic profiling of Arabs and South 
Asians also will waste a great deal of police time and effort. He said 
police "should look at patterns or characteristics of criminal behavior 
rather than ethnicity."

Police also get their best information from the members of a community who 
are alarmed about criminal activity in their neighborhoods, Downing said.

If innocent and concerned members of a community are alienated by police 
"stopping everybody of a racial or ethnic type," Downing said, "where will 
information come from?"

No one at the meeting presented a police viewpoint, local or national, on 
the issue.

Downing said he is confident that all the attention being paid to racial 
and ethnic profiling by the public and the courts will eventually lead to 
better policies.

Until then, Downing said, people who may be the targets of racial or ethnic 
profiling should know their rights, including the right to refuse a police 
request to search a person's car when there is no probable cause.

Free information on what victims of profiling can do is available, said 
Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Kentucky.

For a brochure -- available in a variety of languages -- or for a "Racial 
Profiling Survival Kit," call Vessels at 581-1181 or e-mail him at  ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager