Traffic-stop data won't halt debate over racial profiling
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The question seemed so simple and so important two years ago when city leaders agreed to collect data on all police traffic stops.
And yet, after 16 months of exhaustive planning, the answer is as elusive as ever.
While information on traffic stops may be helpful, the truth is the data alone won't prove racial profiling exists, say police, city officials, community members and even a consultant hired to study the issue.
"We're trying to use statistics to determine if the race filter is being used," said Seattle Deputy Chief John Diaz. "But it's a very blunt instrument. And I'm not so sure it's going to answer what some people expect it will."
Based on the recent experience of Sacramento, Calif., a city that embarked on a remarkably similar quest, more questions and controversy likely will emerge once the data is analyzed.
Richard McIver, the only African American on the Seattle City Council, and once a proponent of the proposal, recently voiced the unexpected: Maybe the city should put more cameras in police cruisers and abandon trying to collect the traffic data.
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In coming weeks, the City Council will weigh in on an ambitious $225,000 proposal to collect racial data on police traffic stops.
To McIver, "It's a waste of money."
Public wants changes
From routine traffic stops to highly publicized shootings, the public, especially minorities, is demanding more police accountability.
The pressure intensified following two studies — one by police, the other by The Seattle Times — that showed police ticketed African-American motorists at a higher rate than whites. Separately, the city also found that police impounded a disproportionate number of black-owned cars.
City leaders envisioned collecting data on police stops as one way to help restore community trust in the department. The goal was to either vindicate police officers, increasingly weary of racial-profile allegations, or validate community concerns that police stop drivers on the basis of race.
In November 2000, the City Council passed a resolution condemning racial profiling and created a task force to determine how to collect the data. The 14-member panel included a public defender, a prosecutor, an assistant U.S. attorney, an ex-Seattle cop, a church outreach coordinator and community representatives. Responding to community complaints, five more members were later added to include more Asian Americans and young African-American men.
Howard Greenwald, a professor of management and policy at the University of Southern California, was hired to work with the group. Greenwald already was overseeing Sacramento's data-collection program, deemed at the time as one of the country's most comprehensive efforts. And he was local: He lives in Seattle and commutes to his job in Southern California.
To ensure their voices were heard, Seattle police formed their own study group. Their comments and concerns to the task force provoked some of the most contentious discussions, previewing how difficult the process would be.
Fill in the bubbles
The city task force created a proposal that would require officers to complete a "Scantron sheet" after every traffic stop. A set of questions would have to be answered by filling in the Scantron's bubbles, like schoolchildren do with their No. 2 pencils on multiple-choice tests.
When it came to designing the Scantron, some members also wanted a blank to identify the officer's badge number. Police balked.
Officers feared they would be singled out and the data used in disciplinary action. The ID requirement was a witch hunt, they said, and could lead to fewer traffic stops, or "de-policing."
What the Scantron sheet should ask, police argued, is whether the driver's race could be determined before they were pulled over.
"The whole question of racial profiling is about perceptions," Sgt. Donnie Lowe told the task force in September. "It's about, 'Did the officer have to make a stop?' Officers would like to show that most of the time they don't make a stop based on race."
Lowe, a 10-year member of the department, recently explained the mindset of a street cop. Years ago, when his beat included the corner of 18th Avenue and Yesler Way, prostitution was a problem. If he'd see a white guy at 2 a.m. circling the block, and if the license tags traced back to an Eastside address, Lowe would think "john."
Similarly, when Lowe worked the downtown core, and he'd see an African-American or Hispanic guy pacing, talking to passers-by and constantly reaching into his pockets, he'd think "drug dealer."
"You have to have various factors for wanting to stop someone. At the time, a white guy with Bellevue tags fit the image of a john. And most street-level dealing was being done by blacks and Hispanics."
A Scantron sheet allowing officers to state whether they could determine someone's race before a stop would be a good indicator of whether racial profiling was a factor, Lowe and others say.
But some on the task force said the question would give officers an easy out by saying they didn't know the driver's race.
In the end, the task force could not agree on whether to identify the officers by badge number or whether to include the race question. Instead, the task force, police and even Greenwald sent separate reports to the City Council, which must decide what's next.
If there are lessons for Seattle to learn, it has only to turn to Sacramento, which began collecting traffic-stop data almost two years ago.
Hired there as a consultant, Greenwald crunched police data with the census, crime reports, suspect descriptions, radio communications and parolee information. His conclusion: While a disproportionate number of African Americans were stopped by police for minor violations, racial bias alone could not explain it.
It wasn't profiling as much as it was good policing, Greenwald argued. Sacramento's highest crime areas were largely black. A high percentage of suspects, based on dispatcher's reports, were also black.
The police sought to curb crime and if such policing patterns "incidentally" result in more frequent stop of minorities, that cannot be considered racial profiling, Greenwald said.
The study satisfied police, and city officials extended Greenwald's contract to collect data for two more years.
But the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Sacramento Bee newspaper, in an editorial, called the report misleading. They charged Greenwald was biased and his definition of racial profiling too narrow.
Greenwald responded in his own published opinion piece. "No study can provide incontrovertible answers to an issue as emotionally charged as racial profiling. But statistics presented in the report render allegations of significant racial bias difficult to believe.
"It may be time to recognize the possibility that racial profiling has been emotionalized by journalistic sensationalism and political exploitation."
Sacramento officials, acknowledging they needed to look deeper at the issue, created a community advisory board. "The more you look at the issue, the more complex it becomes. The more questions are raised," said Sacramento Police Lt. Cara Westin.
"It would be foolish to think one year of data collection, or data collection alone, will provide all the answers. It's impossible to climb into the minds of police and sift out those who are biased based simply on stopping behavior."
One factor not enough
While it may be OK to describe a suspect by his or her race, says David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor and racial-profiling expert, race alone cannot be used to predict criminal behavior.
The stakes of profiling are now higher, too. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has increased the scope of police discretion, an officer may now use a traffic stop to fish for evidence or to request a search without having any proof of criminal activity.
"For a long time in this country, we have simply accepted that it makes sense to search minorities more," Harris said. "We'll get more bad guys that way."
But such race-based law enforcement doesn't work, Harris argues. So-called hit rates, the rates of found contraband, on African Americans who are stopped vs. whites, are not higher, Harris said. In fact, the rates are equal to whites, and in some cases lower.
Collecting traffic-stop data, however, can help get a handle on overall police behavior as long as its limitations are acknowledged, he says.
The value in collecting data is that it may tell you what happens after someone is stopped, Harris said. Who gets searched? What is uncovered? Searches are at times solely based on the officer's discretion, and such data may show if drivers of different races are being treated the same.
Such information, some community and task-force members say, is why it's worth collecting the data in Seattle.
"A study is better than nothing," said Vanessa Lee, of the local American Friends Service Committee. "It won't solve the problem, but it may show a pattern."
Pat Champion, co-chairwoman of the Seattle task force, agrees: "It's part of a puzzle."
"You look at the data and then follow through and make changes in police practices. It's what we do with the information that's important," she said.
What's more, she added, Seattle's plan would make the city the first in the nation to include a voluntary Scantron sheet that police would offer stopped motorists to fill out and send in, which could yield valuable information on police behavior.
Still, if the community really wants to know what happens at police stops, video cameras in patrol cars may be more practical, said McIver.
A pilot project that includes 16 cameras recently started. The police department estimates equipping all 220 patrol cars, something the Seattle Police Guild favors instead of data collection, would cost at least $3 million.
Florangela Davila can be reached at 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com.