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"Racial Profiling is WRONG...and we don't do it..."
according to the Moorhead Police Department.
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PEPP
believes that the data and the community's experience needs attention.
We believe that there is Profiling and
we need to do something about it!
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Traffic Stops in
Moorhead, MN --- 2002---Prepared
for Moorhead PD by Mark Hansel, MSUM-- Traffic Stop
Data Form used in 2002
Minorities stopped more often
By Joy Anderson
The Forum - 07/29/2003
Latinos and blacks were stopped, searched and arrested more often than
Caucasians during traffic violations in Moorhead in 2002, shows an
analysis of a Police Department study.
But police may not have used racial profiling while making stops, said
the report by Mark Hansel, professor of sociology and criminal justice
at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Traffic stops could have been caused not by ethnicity, but by factors
such as vehicle condition and driver behavior, which were not tracked,
said the report.
In addition, results may have been skewed by the small numbers of
minorities who were pulled over, said the report, released Monday.
Moorhead officials are taking the study results seriously and plan to
use the information while designing officer training, said City Manager
Bruce Messelt. He also said the report isn't proof of a major problem.
"I sure hope we don't overreact and find one line in here and think we
have a major crisis," he said.
The report analyzed 8,009 forms filled out by Moorhead police officers
each time they pulled over a driver for a traffic violation last year,
noting ethnicity, why the driver was stopped and the outcome of the
stop.
The information will be used in a statewide report to be released next
year.
In the meantime, Moorhead officers will continue to collect traffic
stop information through the end of the year, to gather a larger
sample,
said Police Chief Grant Weyland.
The Hansel analysis shows all other ethnic groups are stopped a few
percentage points more frequently than Caucasians, compared to their
proportion in the, population.
But when the average number of miles driven by a member of an ethnic
group is factored in, blacks were stopped nearly five times more than
whites per miles driven, and Latinos and Asians were stopped 1.4 times
more than whites, using numbers from a U.S. Department of
Transportation study.
Because American Indians drive more than members of other groups, they
were stopped one-third less than whites, when miles driven per group
were examined.
Several city officials questioned whether the national averages for
miles driven -- and thus the more startling statistics -- were
applicable in Moorhead.
"I think a lot of ethnic groups live in major urban areas, so the
number of miles driven may be different than they are here," Weyland
said.
The report also showed American Indians, Latinos and blacks were about
10 percent more likely to be arrested than the overall population
during
stops.
At the same time, Latinos were most likely to be pulled over and
receive neither a citation, warning or arrest. Data that could show
whether or not that statistic means Latinos are targets of unfounded
police harassment were not collected by
officers, the report said.
The report also showed that one in three American Indians stopped,
along with one in five blacks and Latinos stopped, were subjects of a
search. That's compared to one in 12 Caucasians.
Officers knew the ethnicity of Latinos before they were pulled over
nearly one-quarter of the time, the study said. That was the only group
for which results were significantly higher than the average of 18.3
percent.
And when officers knew drivers were Latinos before they were pulled
over, they were treated differently than other drivers: They were
subject to vehicle searches 38 percent of the time, compared to 13
percent overall, the study said.
The report isn't surprising, but it does raise many questions, said
Councilman and Human Rights Commission member Greg Lemke.
"We need to do some further research, get some further explanation as
to why those numbers are different," he said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Joy Anderson at (701) 241-5556
Profiling studies wanted
By Joy Anderson
The Forum - 07/30/2003
Tammie Yak doesn’t need a report to tell her about racial profiling.
She’s heard stories from people who feel they were targeted by police
officers because of race.
“It seems possibly things could be getting better, but that’s because
people are not reporting incidents,” said Yak, self-sufficiency
coordinator for Cultural Diversity Resources. “I have individuals
coming in all the time who have been racially profiled.”
A day after Moorhead released a report exploring the possibility of
racial profiling during its traffic stops, advocates for minority
groups
called for more information to be collected and community dialogues
tobe started.
“I think it’s a good opportunity for the Police Department to actually
do some community accountability, how they’re going to change,” said
Duke Schempp, director of the People Escaping Poverty Project, who said
he would like to see a forum between community groups and police
officials.
The analysis, based on information gathered by Moorhead police during
every traffic stop in 2002 for a statewide study, said blacks and
Latinos were pulled over, searched and arrested more often than whites.
But it also said that’s not proof of racial profiling by police
officers.
Information that could have answered the central question -- whether or
not Moorhead police engaged in racial profiling
-- was not gathered in the study, said Mark Hansel, professor of
sociology and criminal justice at Minnesota State University Moorhead,
who was paid $575 by the city to do the analysis.
Other causes -- including outdated, inaccurate census data or
unreported factors like driver behavior and vehicle condition -- could
have produced the study’s results, he said.
“It’s inconclusive because the data collected don’t answer the
questions that need to be answered -- by design,” he said.
There are ways to get that information, but they’re expensive, Hansel
said.
He would like to see the Police Department continue to collect
information and expand the kinds of data it documents.
The department is examining doing just that, said Police Chief Grant
Weyland.
Right now, the report can draw no hard-and-fast conclusions, Hansel
said.
“There’s something in that report for everybody, if you want to spin it
and you want to find evidence for or against profiling,” Hansel said.
Like Yak, Sandra Berlin thought there was a problem before reading the
report --she hears almost daily stories about police treating
minorities
differently.
“I know there’s a lot more going on thanwhat’s coming out,” said
Berlin, field organizer for the Minnesota Indian Ecumenical Ministry.
She helped organize the Justice Circle group two years ago, when a
report to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said minorities were
arrested in disproportionate numbers in Moorhead.
Moorhead’s police department volunteered for the state-wide study in
response to that 2001 report, so Berlin feels her group has made some
progress, despite the report’s results.
“It’s a good thing if they are looking at it and trying to find
answers,” Berlin said. “Of course it’s going to take a while to see any
difference.”
Readers can reach Forum reporter Joy Anderson at (701) 241-5556
