Trial Ordered on Racial Profiling Claim

Setting the stage for an unusual courtroom battle, a federal appeals court Tuesday ordered a trial in the case of a Korean man who charged he was the victim of racial profiling by the Anaheim Police Department.

The man, Yong Ho Choi, was wrongly detained for two days in 1996 on suspicion of killing CHP Officer Don Burt Jr.; he was released and another Asian man was arrested and later convicted in the case.

A lower court tossed out the man’s claims that he was a victim of racial profiling. But the appeals court said there is enough evidence to force a trial on whether Choi’s civil rights were violated.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals criticized police for detaining Choi even though the description of the gunman was of a younger and taller Vietnamese man. The justices said they “expect more” from officers patrolling a racially diverse area.

But they said a jury would have to decide whether the case is part of a larger pattern of racial profiling. “A custom of treating ‘all Asians’ alike would be intolerable,” the court stated.

While the debate over racial profiling has focused primarily on blacks and Latinos, some Asians in Orange County have also complained about the practice. The issue prompted a meeting last year between local police and UCI students, some of whom accused officers of aggressively pulling over souped-up Honda Accords and Acura Integras favored by young Asians.

The issue has also caused tension in Garden Grove, where police in the mid-1990s kept a book with photos of suspected gang members. The police stopped the practice to settle a lawsuit filed by several Vietnamese teenagers who said the photos were taken based merely on the subjects’ ethnicity and attire.

Robin Toma, acting executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said the possibility of racial profiling against Asians has been discussed for years across Southern California and is worth a fuller examination.

“Unconscious racism can . . . cause hardships to people unless certain safeguards are taken,” said Toma. Anaheim police strongly deny that officers use racial profiling. They say the lawsuit is a first for the department and that the appeals court found no evidence in the records to suggest that profiling is a customary practice.

“We have always enjoyed a reputation of being fair. We treat individuals on a case-by-case basis,” said Rick Martinez, Anaheim police spokesman.

Legal experts say such federal civil rights lawsuits are not uncommon--especially in cases involving traffic stops. The Choi case, however, is one of few involving Asians. Moreover, legal experts said they were struck by the strong tone the appeals court took against racial profiling.

“I think what the court is saying is it’s improper for police to arrest a person solely on the issue of race,” said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky.

Choi was taken into custody at gunpoint on an Anaheim street corner shortly after a gunman shot CHP rookie Burt and fled in the officer’s car. Police believed Choi was seen running from the car after it had been abandoned.

Several eyewitnesses identified Choi as the man Burt pulled over. But police had been told that the killer was an 18-year-old Vietnamese man about 5 feet, 10 inches tall. Choi was 32 years old at the time and is 5-foot-7.

“The officers generalized from this information to a classification embracing 2 billion persons,” the court wrote in its opinion. “We can . . . expect more of police moving in a community of many ethnicities.”