320 Complaints of Racial Profiling and Not One Had Merit, LAPD Says
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Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit—a conclusion that left members of the department’s oversight commission incredulous.
It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.
In 2007, the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Group closed 320 investigations into allegations that officers stopped, questioned or otherwise confronted someone solely because of the person’s race. Nearly 80% of the time—252 of the cases—the claims were dismissed outright as “unfounded,” according to an annual complaint report presented Tuesday to the civilian Police Commission. In the remaining cases, there was either insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion or no misconduct was uncovered.
“A big, fat zero,” said a visibly flummoxed Commissioner John Mack, who is African American and the former president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution. . . . I find it baffling that we have these zeros.”
{snip}
Allegations of racial profiling, he said, hinge on what the officer was thinking at the time and, so, are nearly impossible to prove without a confession.
{snip}
Bratton [Police Chief William J. Bratton] rejected the notion that some allegations, while not proven, were legitimate. “This is not a racist department. It is not a homophobic department. It is not a brutal department,” he said. “Does it have some officers that may be those things? Possibly. But we search very hard for them, and their numbers are very small.”
Tim Sands, president of the union that represents the department’s 9,300 rank-and-file officers, had harsher words for the commissioners. “I am really outraged. They are using a circular logic that just because someone makes an allegation, then the officer has to be found guilty. That’s mid-century thinking,” Sand said. “They are supposed to be in a role of leadership. I’m sorry but that is not an attitude of leadership.”
Sands, who himself was cleared of a racial profiling accusation about 20 years ago, said he plans to demand a meeting with commissioners to discuss the issue.
It is not the first time debate has flared around questions of how thoroughly the LAPD looks into profiling allegations. Last year, the commission approved a new set of rules for how such investigations should be handled to address concerns raised by the U.S. Justice Department and the commission’s inspector general after they probed the issue.
The guidelines include a checklist to ensure that officers are asked basic questions, such as whether they knew the race of the motorist before making the traffic stop and whether race was a factor in the decision to pull over the motorist.
{snip}
In 2006, the city contracted with an outside consulting group to look into the issue. The study found that Latino and African American motorists in most areas of Los Angeles are significantly more likely than whites to be asked to leave their vehicles and submit to searches when stopped by police. The firm concluded, however, that its analysis of the data was too broad to determine whether the disparities were a sign of racial profiling.
After years of delays, the first phase of a project to install video cameras in police patrol cars is expected to start in coming months. The cameras are expected to provide more telling information.
Email Joel Rubin at joel.rubin@latimes.com.
(Posted on April 30, 2008)
Comments
I don’t know how you can avoid racial profiling in the first place when the great majority of crime is committed by 1-2% of the population(blk males 14-39)
Posted by at 6:11 PM on April 30
Perhaps they didn’t have merit. But the fact that accusations of racial profiling can be leveled at all and that they’re such a “sin” that fear of being so accused amounts to tight handcuffs on the cops.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:20 PM on April 30
Perhaps the police should rename Racial Profiling to a term that blacks embrace: Affirmative Action.
Posted by Sensitivity Trainer at 6:55 PM on April 30
Besides always looking for ‘racism’ to explain their own failure, another characteristic of blacks that I have noted on many occasions is to take even the most innocuous and perceived slight or rudeness as a personal attacked. Using the wrong word or looking at them the wrong way can be perceived as racism.
As I work in an urban center, I deal with multiple races every day. White people ignore me and are rude to me all the time. That’s just strangers living their lives. Unless it’s deliberate and malicious (I can’t recall any such incidents), I would certainly take it as an offense.
Black, however, see any real or imagined insignificant social slight as a barazan act of disrespect which is why, as a rule, I try to stay away from them and have as little contact as I can. I don’t sit or stand near them. If they move toward me, I move away. I don’t strike up conversations and if forced to by circumstance, I will give them the time of day if they see I’m wearing a watch and they ask.
I consider any interaction with blacks to be a potential time bomb. I’m not going to go out of my way to befriend blacks.
Blacks wonder why white people don’t want to be around them. For me, one reason is simply to avoid stepping on a landmine. I’m not going to place myself in a position where looking at someone the wrong way is perceived as a racist attack.
No interaction, no trouble; a situation that shelters them from my ‘racism’ and me from their abuse.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 7:06 PM on April 30
I’d like to ask Tim Sands what he means by “mid-century thinking”. What was wrong with the thought of 50+ years ago? Certainly no cop would have been persecuted for keeping a close eye on Blacks back then.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:01 PM on April 30
After reading the headline, one might think: Is the LAPD playing a game here? That question invites other questions: Haven’t minorities been playing accusation games for decades now? Are white officers guilty of racial profiling as charged? No proof needed?
If you are white, be prepared to be charged with some form of racism in this society.
Posted by at 8:23 PM on April 30
I always wondered why we (allegedly) hired racist cops in black neighborhoods when we don’t have anti-upper class cops arresting people left and right in Beverly hills.
Posted by Barakku at 8:34 PM on April 30
Tim Sands, president of the union that represents the department’s 9,300 rank-and-file officers, had harsher words for the commissioners. “I am really outraged. They are using a circular logic that just because someone makes an allegation, then the officer has to be found guilty. That’s mid-century thinking,” Sand said.
More like medieval thinking. I have accussed so-and-so of being a witch, therefore she MUST burn at the stake.
Posted by at 8:41 PM on April 30
The beauty of this, is that the person making the complaint does not to have to site any evidence other than “He stopped me and I am black…that’s proof enough”.
Based on this scenario the complaints add up pretty quick.
Many of the neighborhoods in LA are virtually nothing but black/hispanic and filled with gangs and crime. So odds are if you pull over anyone for anything, they are black or hispanic. The demographics leave you no other choice.
And it is also a one-way street. When’s the last time you heard of a cop complaining that a gang-banger shot at him for no other reason but his race?
Posted by Lucas M at 8:47 PM on April 30
Do you think that they will wear out that word racism until they take it out of the dictionary???? That’s all they know is hate for the whites….but then that is NOT racism in the minds of the idiots who run this country….they pander to them!!
Posted by lydia at 9:29 PM on April 30
I agree with the above posters on how many blacks see racism everywhere. Current proof of that can be seen in the Dem primary with the many airings of Rev. Wright’s rants. Obama’s supporters are now saying that that issue is now closed and further playing of the rants is racist. Go Figure!
Posted by at 9:36 PM on April 30
Racial profiling charges are used and objected, 90 percent or more of the time, by people who are troublemakers, illegally in the nation, or violating the law in some other way. The truth is the cops have no interest in holding someone up for hours to question them without cause. It’s less donut shop time. There only human.
Posted by Bobby at 11:08 PM on April 30
An idea: If you are going to pick apples, find an apple tree. Strip searching residents of nursing homes, probably isn’t going to be too productive.
Posted by The Old Sage at 11:47 PM on April 30
One would think, maybe some crimes could be solved if these people weren’t so busy investigating all these false charges.
Posted by abc at 6:14 AM on May 1
““..A big, fat zero,” said a visibly flummoxed Commissioner John Mack, who is African American and the former president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution… . I find it baffling that we have these zeros…””
Hey, ijit…any “racist” cops that haven’t been brutally purged from the LAPD’s ranks (with Josef Stalin smiling on approvingly) have learned something. In Kalifornistan, there’s an law against EVERYTHING! If you study the Penal Code, Vehicle Code, et. al. long enough you can find a reason to stop Mother Teresa (probably for crossing against the red light).
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 10:02 AM on May 1
These policemen and their supervisors have to understand that a “racist” is no longer someone who doesn’t like blacks, but is anyone whom blacks do not like.
The times I have ben pulled over by cops, they have always asked, “Do you know why I stopped you?” The only time I was unable to answer was when I was pulled over for going 43 in a 40 zone. It was a downhill grade, and I had not noticed that I had picked up a little speed (cops get strict here about traffic laws when school goes back into session each fall.) Presumably cops ask blacks this same question, and presumably they are also able to answer it.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 4:39 PM on May 1
We had this woman here in KC who was pulled over by the police for no tag. She had outstanding warrants, presented false ID and statements about who she was. She said she was pregnant & needed to go to the hospital. Instead the police took her to jail and she later miscarried. She turned out to be an illegal from Somalia. She had her other children taken from her and stated she was going to the liquor store when stopped. Now the officers are suspended and may loose their jobs. Now how does anybody know her miscarriage was not self induced while she was in jail?
Posted by at 5:17 PM on May 1
“A big, fat zero,” said a visibly flummoxed Commissioner John Mack, who is African American and the former president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution … I find it baffling that we have these zeros.”
Indeed; evidence and logic suggest that racial profiling occurs across America - in favor of blacks (governments are afraid of black political power and give blacks more leeway than other groups as a result).
Sexual profiling (against men) is hunkey-dorey with the “civil rights” folks, and men are ruthlessly profiled every day across America. Since blacks are treated with kid gloves in both profiling and the arrest process, they are less impacted by this sexual profiling - white men bear the brunt. Thus, white men suffer from widespread de facto racial profiling.
(I should point out that men are ruthlessly profiled for perfectly valid reasons, and if sanity ruled in America black males would be even more ruthlessly profiled than other males)
Posted by Svigor at 7:32 PM on May 1
Allegations of racial profiling, he said, hinge on what the officer was thinking at the time and, so, are nearly impossible to prove without a confession
“hinge on what the officer was thinking at the time”, Enter the thought police, the next logical step, not only do we not have freedom of speech, we’re loosing our freedom of thought, which they’ve already tried to destroy our ability to critically think by indoctrination through education and the media. Well today in LA they’re celebrating a communist holiday, the transformation into The Peoples Republic of California is almost complete.
Posted by PincheGabacho at 9:05 PM on May 1
Meanwhile in North Carolina, a drug addicted prostitute claimed she was raped by a group of white male students at Duke U., and a group of over 80 of the most highly educated people in the community, professors, wanted these students hung without a trial.
Posted by tall one at 6:30 AM on May 2
May First isn’t a “Communist” holiday, PincheGabacho, it’s an old Celtic one, Beltane, which was hijacked by the reds, much the way the Christians hijacked the old Roman Feast of Saturnalia and renamed it “Christmas.”. The other three Celtic holidays are Samhain (Halloween), Llamas ad Imbolc.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:30 PM on May 2
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most of the cops in the L.A.P.D. black or Hispanic now? Most of the cops in the Rampart scandal were Hispanic, IIRC.
Posted by qwerty at 5:57 AM on May 3