Racial Profiling and its effects on Blacks
and Browns
By Just Valerie
The Racial Profiling-Texas Traffic Stops and Searches Report prepared by Steward
Research Group on the behalf of the Texas Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, the ACLU of Texas, NAACP of Texas, and Texas
LULAC, reports Blacks and Hispanics who are stopped by State Troopers are more than 3.5 times likely to have their vehicles
searched than white drivers. A prior report prepared by the Texas Department of Public Safety reflects that the first seven
months of their compiled statistics state the same results.
State lawmakers who want to require police departments to
keep such records said the figures show what they have suspected all along: those minorities are unfairly targeted. “Absolutely,
it is racial profiling,” said Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat.
But DPS officials
said it is the actions of the drivers that lead to searches, not the ethnicity of the vehicles’ occupants. “We
don’t believe that there are searches occurring because a person is of a certain race or ethnicity,” said Maj.
Ricky Smith, who oversees DPS traffic enforcement. “We believe searches are occurring because there is an indication
of criminal activity based on our experience as police officers.”
The Dallas Morning News examined 491,000 traffic tickets and 441,000 warning citations that troopers issued from last
March through September 2002. In about 26,300 cases, or 3 percent of the stops,
the vehicles were searched. Troopers searched about one in 50 white motorists stopped, one in 22 Black drivers and one in
20 Hispanics. Rates remained the same—meaning minority drivers were 3.5 times more likely than White drivers to be searched.
The reports also show that more White motorists than Black or Hispanic motorists were arrested for illegal activities.
William Harrell, State Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that in the last 10 months, his group has
logged more than 200 complaints from Texas drivers who believe they were targets of racial profiling. “The police would
like you to believe that this is all about criminals who are complaining. But the people who we are getting the complaints
from are business leaders, lawmakers, doctors, and even a Federal Judge—who
has been stopped three times,” he said.
This isn’t just a South thing, this is a national problem. New Jersey reports; Profiling is still a problem,
AG says: Some State Troopers are still profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike, despite a major reform effort, the state’s
Attorney General (John J. Farmer) told a Senate committee that Blacks and Hispanics are being searched much more than White
drivers. Farmer also indicated that this occurred, even though reports show Whites carry drugs more often than do minorities.
Searches of minority drivers are also based on lower legal standards than the one troopers use for white drivers, Mr. Farmer
said.
Now come on people…hello…red light! What world is Maj. Ricky Smith from, if he can honestly say that the
stops and searches aren’t based on race? The true emotional affect of racial profiling takes hold when young minorities
read about an unarmed Black male, 19 years young, being killed by a police officer because he had traffic tickets. Timothy Thomas of Cincinnati, Ohio—a black teenager who lost his life, because he began running from
the policeman who shot him. Okay, some may ask why he ran. Well let’s go
to New York March, 1999 and ask the family of Amadou Diallo, the 22 year old Black man that totally terrified four of New
York’s finest. Seasoned cops, and all members of an “elite street crimes unit,” yet they were terrified
by a 5’7, 135 lb., 22 year old, soft-spoken man, holding only his keys under the light in the vestibule to his home.
These highly trained officers were so consumed with fear at the precariousness of their situation, that they pulled their
triggers a total of 41 times before finally realizing that Amadou was no threat to either their (direct) personal safety…or,
them getting home that night.
The reason most young men of color run or act suspicious is because they don’t know if they will see their families
again—if they don’t run! Usually it seems that police are in fear anytime they stop Blacks and Browns; they must
fear for their lives. Meaning that in their minds with the headlines of this day, its open season on Blacks and Browns. I
guess we were born suspects because of our skin color. The serious issues in my mind are that all they have to say is that
they were in fear for their life. With that one statement it excuses the act of murder, even when the victim is unarmed…young…
and innocent. Oh yeah, and it’s just ‘coincidental’ that 8
out of 10 times…the victim is Black or Brown.
Peace out…
