‘Profiling’ Rates a Look in L.A.

What is it about the racial profiling issue that causes Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Sheriff Lee Baca to dig in their heels? More than 70 California police agencies are now compiling information on whether their officers engage in the practice, says state Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City). And that’s despite Gov. Gray Davis’ veto of a bill that would have required tracking.

Loosely defined, profiling is stopping minority motorists on the basis of a “racial profile,” without reasonable suspicion, to harass and intimidate them and to perhaps discover some evidence of criminal activities. It’s an insidious practice, one that has given rise to such phrases as “driving while black.”

Dozens of other local law enforcement agencies are now gathering statistics to monitor and measure the extent of the problem. The New Jersey state police agency has struck an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to end the practice there. In Illinois, a federal judge has asked the Justice Department to investigate arrest practices within at least one police department. Connecticut legislators have passed laws barring profiling, and police in Stamford have banned the practice in an agreement among police, city officials and religious, union and community leaders.

In Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland, police have decided to outfit patrol cars with video cameras to monitor traffic stops. Under an agreement with the Justice Department, Montgomery County police officers will be required to log every traffic stop on a public highway and record motorists’ race, sex and date of birth to see whom the police are stopping and why.

But here in Los Angeles, we have a sheriff who says he won’t order data gathering because it would take too much time and effort. Yet the police chief of San Jose says collecting such information takes little time. Los Angeles also has a police chief who says profiling does not exist in his department. That implies the LAPD is uniquely capable of ensuring racial and ethnic fairness--although history certainly suggests otherwise.

The effort to investigate this discriminatory practice now has national momentum. Chief Parks and Sheriff Baca need to open their minds to the possibility that Los Angeles law enforcement practices merit a look.