When the Shopping Gets Tough

What will it take to get some police officers off the backs of innocent African American shoppers? How many have endured the embarrassment suffered by Annie Slater, wife of retired Rams player Jackie Slater, who was standing outside a cafe with her two sons when Costa Mesa police officers mistook her for a suspect who had passed a bad traveler’s check and detained her?

Annie Slater had the clout to squeeze an apology from Chief David L. Snowden, but only after she filed a lawsuit. Albeit a bit defensively, the chief finally apologized this week. The incident happened almost six months ago. What took so long?

In exchange for the long-overdue apology, Slater did the city a favor and dropped the lawsuit. As part of the deal, the chief wrote a memo to officers encouraging greater racial sensitivity. Perhaps this sad event can make a difference in how other law-abiding black shoppers are treated.

This problem is not unique to Southern California. Black professionals around the nation, including Deval Patrick, the Clinton administration’s chief civil rights enforcer, have been tailed in department stores by overzealous security guards.

The Costa Mesa police chief continues to defend his officers. They did nothing wrong in his book. “No matter how hard we work, there’s going to be somebody throwing stones,” he insists. That seems to miss the point.

Chief Snowden can improve public safety if he ensures that the lesson of this case is learned. Snowden’s officers, and officers everywhere, should work harder to nail the criminals without harassing law-abiding shoppers.