There are two problems with racial profiling by cops. One concerns a minority of cops who do stop blacks and Latinos because they may harbor a hatred of minorities. These cops should be weeded out because they do not belong on any poli9ce force.
The biggest problem though concerns the common belief of minorities that whenever they are stopped by the police, it is only because they are black or Latino. Sometimes the police are justified in stopping minorities because they are black or Latino. For example, if an officer observes a two or more blacks or Latinos in a car driving around slowly in an all white neighborhood, especially a neighborhood that is experiencing burglaries and thefts, it is just good basic police work to check out the car occupants.
If an officer will treat minorities exactly the same as he would treat a white person under the same circumstances, he is not engaging in racial profiling, although he will be accused of doing so anyhow. Many of these complaints are made following stops for traffic violations. A cop would face fewer racial profiling complaints if he would use his discretion by not stopping minorities for minor traffic violations such as broken taillights or failure to give a turn signal.
By making it easier to sustain racial profiling complaints, San Jose PD seems to be getting ready to sacrifice some of its officers on the altar of political correctness.
SAN JOSE POLICE CHANGE DEFINITION OF ‘RACIAL PROFILING’
By Sean Webby
San Jose Mercury News
February 21, 2011
Over the past four years, San Jose police investigated 150 racial profiling or other bias allegations against city cops -- yet the department's internal affairs unit did not sustain a single complaint.
Now, the department is broadening its definition of profiling, and its new police chief is calling for more thorough looks into claims of biased behavior by cops. The city's independent police auditor calls it a "huge" shift in the right direction, and minority community leaders say it's about time.
San Jose police changed the policy last week, making it a violation for an officer to show any biased behavior at any time during an encounter with the public. Before, it was considered a violation only if the officer first stopped an individual solely because of race, gender or other biased reasons.
"I'm bound and determined to investigate all aspects of these allegations," police Chief Chris Moore said. "Sometimes I get the feeling that some of the more nuanced issues may have been skipped."
He gave no specifics. But when asked whether he felt that his officers may have gotten away with racially profiling people, the chief said: "There's no way for me to tell. I don't believe so, given what I know about my police officers."
Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell said the language change was "huge, it's very significant. If these allegations are not thoroughly investigated, then we are subject to the same type of federal oversight that you have in Los Angeles. I hope that doesn't happen in San Jose."
Late last year the Los Angeles Police Department was criticized by the federal Department of Justice for its inadequate handling of racial profiling complaints.
Moore has vowed to try to repair the strained relationship between San Jose's minorities and police, which has been accused of overly aggressive street policing and racial profiling.
Police oversight experts say San Jose's track record of not sustaining racial profiling complaints is relatively common among major departments. Such complaints, they said, are hard to prove.
"It's difficult to show an officer intended to discriminate," said Philip Eure, a national police oversight leader and head of Washington, D.C.'s police oversight agency. "Yet it's easy to show an officer pulled someone over for a lawful reason. That's the paradox."
Since 2002, the San Jose Police Duty Manual has read that an officer must not "initiate a contact solely" based on factors including race, color, nationality and gender. This definition clearly was hard to prove if, for example, an officer could rebut that the person had a broken tail light on his or her car. Police came under heavy scrutiny for arresting a disproportionate number of Latinos for public intoxication, some of whom alleged they were simply not drunk.
Using racial epithets and other overtly racist behavior would normally be covered by other officer guidelines, but more subtle issues may not be. An example would be if an officer orders the person to sit on a curb.
Cordell said a litmus test would be: "If an officer has a Latino man sit on the curb, then would the officer have a white man in a suit sit on a curb, if the circumstances were the same?"
The new definition brings San Jose more in line with other departments. The Sacramento Police Department, for example, has a policy that says: "Bias-based policing may also be defined as a police action based on an assumption or belief that any of the aforementioned classifications (race, etc.) have a tendency to participate or engage in criminal behavior."
The San Francisco police policy includes a list of steps to help ensure that people do not feel they are being profiled. One step is for the officer to provide a quick explanation of why the person has been stopped.
But even though San Francisco has a broader definition of racial profiling, last year none of the 82 complaints were sustained.
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