Our Opinion: Shades of Profiling
A few weeks ago we ran a story about Moorhead’s chief of police withholding public information in the form of a traffic stop data report (“Our Lips are Sealed” – Jan. 31 HPR). In it, we discussed some findings from the 2002 Moorhead Traffic Stop Data Report (a.k.a. 2003 Minnesota Statewide Racial Profiling Report: Moorhead). We also discussed public sentiment toward the seemingly impossible task of retrieving any of the follow-up data we knew to exist.
Shortly after running that article, the Moorhead Police Department finally came forward with the 2004 Traffic Stop Data Report. In the 2002 report, the notion of racial profiling was brushed aside under the pretext that the study was flawed and needed further research. The findings of the 2004 report, however, make the notion of racial profiling hard to ignore.
“Whereas overall, racial knowledge increases the likelihood of a driver search by less than 1 percent, among American Indians, it increases it by over 10 percent (from 27 percent to 37.5 percent), among Blacks by 6.7 percent and among Latinos by 2.4 percent,” the report said.
Although the report illustrates shades of racial profiling among most non-White groups in general, the profiling of Native Americans is of particular interest. It said, “While about 8 percent of all stops result in driver searches, 28.9 percent of American Indian stops produce a search. Similarly, while 10.8 percent of stops result in vehicle searches, 37.8 percent of American Indian stops do.”
“This data pattern suggests that the threshold of ‘reasonable suspicion’ officers use with minorities is lower than the threshold they use with Whites and Asians.”
Even more shocking than the statistics in the 2004 Traffic Stop Data Report are the conclusions.
“Obviously there can be many reasons for these differences,” it said. “However, a 21 percent greater likelihood of a driver search, a 27 percent greater likelihood of a vehicle search, and a 7.8 percent greater likelihood of a passenger search beg for an explanation.”
“Among Whites, prior racial knowledge actually reduces the likelihood of a driver search. This is not a data pattern that speaks strongly for race-neutral policing.”
“In order to explain away officer disparate treatment, one must work very hard to come up with driver-based explanations.”
In a Jan. 11 memorandum addressed to Moorhead police personnel, Chief Ebinger said that racial profiling does not occur in the Moorhead Police Department. The implications of the traffic stop data reports make this claim hard to believe. Nevertheless, Ebinger is giving a presentation to the Moorhead Human Rights Commission this Tuesday (at city hall), allegedly to explain how racial profiling does not occur in our community.
In our Jan. 31 article, “Our Lips are Sealed,” we took the position that public openness and honesty are crucial for a community’s well-being. The MPD has responded well to the public’s request for the 2002 data, but there is still some doubt about the possible existence of a 2003 report (one separate than the 2002 report published in a 2003 statewide racial profiling report). Is there another report being withheld?
Patrol Sergeant Tory Jacobson of the MPD said in a 2006 Moorhead Department of Human Rights’ Online Newsletter, “We had participated in the Minnesota racial profiling data collection. We did that for that first year, and we volunteered for two additional years to do it on our own.”
Even the report’s author referred to follow-up reports in the plural at a public meeting in Moorhead. Is there another report, or is this concern concocted by semantics? These questions, and many others, will likely be addressed at the Moorhead Human Rights Commission this Tuesday at city hall. Mark your calendars Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. to hear Ebinger’s thoughts.
Comments
6 months, 1 week ago Ocy said
Thank you once again Mr. Kobrinsky this is a detailed report of the content within the study. I’m looking forward to the Police Chiefs thoughts.
6 months, 1 week ago Duke Schempp said
Thank You HPR for continuing to cover this important issue in the community.
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This attention will move us forward in Organizing efforts to have better police accountability.
I echo the suggestion that the community attend the Tuesday, February 26th Moorhead Human Rights Commission Meeting at at Moorhead City Hall, Council Chambers at 7 PM. (City Hall is in the Moorhead Center Mall, North Side, take the elevators up to the 1st Floor)
At this Meeting, the Moorhead Police Chief will explain his position on racial profiling and defend his department. We want to have community members present to make him understand that the department is accountable to the community. The more people in the audience, the better--Join us!
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The Longer term commitment is working with our group to hold Town Hall meetings on police stops and to use the two completed studies of police stop data as a base for community dialogue.
Read our background information and join us in improving police-community relations in Moorhead and the region!
http://www.pepp.org/trafficstopdata/
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For more info, contact PEPP at 218-236-5434
Thanks!
6 months, 1 week ago HighPainsBleeder said
Anyone care to comment about “sanctuary” cities like Mpls. that prevent officers from inquiring into the immigration status of folks stopped for traffic violations in light of the recent murder of 4 school children by an “undocumented worker” near Cottonwood, Minnesota this week? This woman had been previously arrested for driving without a license, yet was not deported because the police have been forbidden to check immigration status of violators by PC bleeding heart Democrats in Minnesota. She also gave a fictitious name to the police the first time she was arrested, and again this time after blowing thru a stop sign and ramming a school bus full of children. How about the twice deported serial rapist in Arizona? Santana Batiz-Aceves, 39, a twice-deported illegal immigrant with a history of drug charges was arrested and charged on suspicion of sexually assaulting five girls and attacking another in the Chandler Rapist crime spree that spanned 18 months, police announced Saturday. All of the illegal alien suspect’s victims were young girls between the ages of 12 and 15. Both of these people would be citizens of the United States right now if John McCain and Ted Kennedy had been successful in ramming their immigration “reform” down our throats last summer. I find it difficult to understand how you can expect people who got into this country by breaking our laws can be expected to observe other laws while they are here illegally.
6 months, 1 week ago Duke Schempp said
I seem to be missing something.
What does that have to do with racial disparity and police stops?
6 months, 1 week ago HighPainsBleeder said
Are you being willfully obtuse? I guess so, since most estimates place the number of illegal immigrants in this country as approx. 12-20 million. Why wouldn’t the police be more likely to pay additional attention to those who likely would be among those millions when making a traffic stop? The lunacy you support is why we have 80 year old Scandinavian grandmas getting their shoes and knitting bags searched at airports, while a group of imams who provoke attention on a flight can play the aggrieved victims when their theatrical antics draw the attention they sought. But congratulations on totally ignoring the issues I raised. There are none so blind as those who will not see…..
6 months, 1 week ago Duke Schempp said
Mmmmmm… it seems that the 2004 Police Stop Study showed Native Americans being pulled over more often than any other group.
I believe Native people did get granted citizenship in the last century-;)
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