Pubdate: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Page: 29A Author: Eric Hanson HPD'S RACIAL PROFILING POLICY MAY MEAN FEWER TRAFFIC TICKETS Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford said he would not be surprised if police were writing fewer traffic tickets because of concerns some officers might have about the department's new racial profiling policy. The policy that was instituted last month requires officers to collect data on every person with whom they initiate contact. The data will be used to determine if officers are detaining or questioning people because of their race. Bradford said statistics on the number of tickets written in the past few weeks are not available and will not be ready for at least 10 to 15 days. The chief said he understands why some officers have reservations about the new practice and said it would be normal to see a decrease in the number of traffic tickets. "That is a typical response when you implement change," Bradford said Wednesday during his monthly briefing with the local news media. He stressed, however, the information is being collected to ensure citizens are stopped for legitimate reasons. "We are not going to tolerate any civil rights violations," Bradford said. Racial profiling is the practice of suspecting a person of possible criminal behavior primarily because of the person's race. The issue has been in the public spotlight recently and was highlighted when New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman fired the state police chief after he said blacks commit more crimes. State police already were under attack for allegedly using a racial profile to stop motorists on the New Jersey Turnpike, a major drug-trafficking corridor. Houston's new policy has raised concern among officers. Hans Marticiuc, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said officers have told him they are writing fewer tickets because they are afraid the information collected for racial profiling could be used to single out officers for punishment. "Tickets have probably been reduced anywhere from 50 to 70 percent," Marticiuc said. He said the police union does not oppose collecting the data but said they are worried about how the information will be analyzed, stored and used. "We don't know what threshold will be used to determine if a particular individual is actually using race as a criteria. It really has the officers concerned," Marticiuc said. Bradford said he has not received complaints Houston police are using racial profiles but added he wants to collect the numbers so the department can deal with the issue if complaints are made. "This data can be used to support or refute any allegations of racial profiling," Bradford said. The chief said when HPD officials analyze the data, one factor that will be important in assessing the information will be the demographics of the officer's patrol area. For example, Bradford said an officer assigned to patrol the city's Third Ward would have more contact with African- Americans because there are more African-Americans living in that area than other ethnic groups. "Nobody in this town is going to grab that set of data and say you are racially profiling because you are stopping predominantly African-Americans. Nobody is going to do that," Bradford said. On the other hand, Bradford said there would be cause for concern if an officer had stopped 10 Hispanics and written all of them tickets while pulling over five whites without issuing a citation. Officials with the city's municipal court system, where traffic tickets are processed, were unable to provide statistics showing whether the number of citations was up or down. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea