‘Corrosive’ Racial Profiling Must End, Clinton Insists

President Clinton on Wednesday denounced racial profiling by some police agencies as a “morally indefensible, deeply corrosive practice” and said that it must be stopped.

To determine the scope of the practice, he directed federal law enforcement agencies--including those overseeing immigration and customs--to start collecting data on the race, gender and ethnicity of any citizens they stop to question or arrest.

“Stopping or searching individuals on the basis of race is not effective law enforcement policy and is not consistent with our democratic ideals,” Clinton said.

He also urged Congress to pass a bill that would create a grant program to help state and local law enforcement agencies gather similar data on racial profiling--the police practice of stopping blacks and Latinos who fit the profile of drug or other crime suspects. Some police officials have said that the practice is not nearly as pervasive as critics say.

Despite a recent public uproar over racial profiling, passage of such legislation is far from certain.

Senate Committee Ignored Legislation

A bill to create a profiling study program sailed through the House on March 24, 1998--with so little controversy that it was approved by a voice vote. But in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee never took up the measure.

Sponsored then and again in the current Congress by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the bill also would require the Justice Department to issue a report, based on a nationwide sampling, on the number and nature of traffic stops by state and local authorities.

In Sacramento, the California Legislature approved a bill last year that would require police to report on the number of traffic stops, the reasons for the stops, the race of the drivers stopped, whether searches were conducted and what if anything was found. But the measure was vetoed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson.

Reintroduced this year by state Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles), the measure won state Senate approval earlier this month and is pending in the Assembly. Murray, who is black, authored the bill after he was stopped in Beverly Hills while driving a black Corvette after his victory on primary election night last year.

Speaking at a conference here on law enforcement and civil rights, the president recalled meeting with a small group of black journalists last year, all of whom believed that they had been victims of racial profiling.

“People of color have the same reaction wherever you go. Members of Congress can tell this story. Students, professors, even off-duty police officers can tell this story. No person of color is immune from such humiliating experiences,” Clinton said.

“We all have an obligation to move beyond anecdotes to find out exactly who is being stopped and why,” he added. “As a necessary step to combat it, we too need hard facts.”

The president’s executive order requires the Treasury, Justice and Interior departments to develop a plan within 120 days to collect data on the race, gender and ethnicity of people whom their personnel stop.

Once such data become available, Clinton said, the Justice Department will determine “what concrete steps we need to take at the national level to eliminate [racial profiling] anywhere it exists.”

Data Likely to Be Factor in Lawsuits

Racial profiling data--or its absence--no doubt will figure prominently in the proliferation of civil rights lawsuits filed against police by members of racial minorities around the country.

Among the cases in which race has become a point of contention is that involving the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller, 19, a black woman, by four white Riverside, Calif., officers in December.

The four were cleared of criminal wrongdoing last month but the FBI is still investigating the shooting, which occurred while Miller sat unresponsive in her car, for possible civil rights violations.

Miller was struck by 12 bullets after officers said they saw her reach for a gun. They said that they had broken the driver’s side window, thinking that she needed medical care.

Several cities, including San Diego and San Jose, have already agreed to begin amassing such statistics. And bills similar to that pending in Congress have been introduced in about a half a dozen state legislatures.

The issue became so politically charged that New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman this year fired State Police Supt. Carl Williams after he admitted that his officers associated certain crimes with some races.

To further assess the prevalence of racial profiling, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told law enforcement and civil rights leaders attending the conference at which Clinton appeared that the Justice Department, which polls 100,000 people twice a year on crime-related issues, will more fully investigate their dealings with police, including whether they believe race played a part in those contacts and whether excessive force may have been used.

The focus on racial profiling drew strong support from many delegates, but others appeared less convinced.

A few civil libertarians suggested that they had heard similar promises from Clinton administration officials before--with few results.

And Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, who attended the conference, said that for all the talk about racial profiling, policy-makers have yet to adequately define the term. “Until they define it, we can’t really discuss it. . . . It means too many things to too many people,” he said in an interview.

In his remarks at the conference, Clinton also hailed the recent convictions of two white New York City police officers for torturing a Haitian immigrant.

“The vast majority of police officers do great honor to the badges they wear with pride, but we must continue to hold accountable those who abuse their power by using excessive or even deadly force. These cases may be relatively rare but one case can sear our hearts forever.”

And he credited law enforcement for declining crime rates “in nearly every category, in virtually every community in America.”

But Clinton also declared: “People of color continue to have less confidence and less trust, and believe that they are targeted for actions by the police not because of their illegal conduct but because of the color of their skin.

“We have to restore the trust between community and police in every community in America.”

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Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau in Washington and Dan Morain in Sacramento contributed to this story.