Assembly Committee OKs Bill Aimed at Racial Profiling
SACRAMENTO — An anti-profiling bill that would require police officers to give their business cards to motorists pulled over in traffic stops cleared a pivotal Assembly hurdle Tuesday.
Proponents of the heavily amended proposal said drivers could use the cards to file complaints against officers who they believe stopped them because of their race or ethnicity.
The Assembly Public Safety Committee, dominated by Latino and African American Democrats, approved the bill 5 to 0 over the opposition of witnesses from minority communities and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Opponents denounced the bill, SB 66 by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), as offering only “illusory” benefits. They insisted that unless a statewide data collection system is created, racial profiling will “remain invisible to everyone except its victims.”
Murray, the Legislature’s No. 1 enemy of police stopping motorists for what is known in minority communities as DWB, or “driving while black” or brown, said he too still favors requiring police to collect ethnic and racial data on the drivers they stop. But he said Davis would veto such a bill, just as he did last year at the urging of law enforcement.
Davis has endorsed the current legislation.
“We have fought that fight. This [latest bill] is a significant step forward,” Murray testified.
Those who support creation of a statewide database favor a system that would require every police officer in California to record the race and ethnicity of each motorist who is detained during a traffic stop but is not issued a ticket or arrested.
Given a threatened veto by Davis, Murray told reporters he wanted to seek another solution. “I figure it is my job to try and find other ways to address the problem,” he said.
Although he vetoed the data-collecting bill last year, Davis did order the California Highway Patrol to collect racial data for three years, a project it already had underway. About 60 police agencies have voluntarily undertaken similar projects.
Murray was supported by more than a dozen African American witnesses Tuesday, including leaders of Los Angeles-area churches, the Service Employees International Union, community activists and Danny Bakewell Sr. of Los Angeles, president of the Brotherhood Crusade.
Bakewell said the bill would “bring some relief to our communities” from what he called a “dreadful problem” of police stopping minority motorists because of their skin color.
Requiring officers to hand over a business card, Bakewell said, represents “a tremendous shift in the balance of power when it comes to law enforcement” officers who, he said, “intimidate, disrespect” and sometimes physically abuse minority drivers.
Bakewell said a business card with the officer’s name and badge number would enable motorists to phone complaints from the “sanctity of their homes and security of their communities.”
But opponents countered that the card requirement is a weak and ineffectual way to bring about police accountability. They said that the Los Angeles Police Department adopted such a policy years ago but that it was not enforced.
Michelle Alexander, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, said it is already against federal law and the U.S. Constitution for police to discriminate against drivers based on their race.
Further, she said, racial profiling cannot be overcome without statewide data to determine whether the practice occurs and, if so, in what forms.
“This bill is not meaningful. It creates the illusion that something is being done,” she testified. “This bill will provide the political excuse for Gov. Davis never to sign a mandatory collection bill.”
Under the Murray plan, she testified, “victims of discriminatory police practices will be left in precisely the same position that they were in before.”
Other opponents include representatives of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. and CHP Officer Ron Burks of San Bernardino.
Burks and others testified that the business card requirement might result in an increase in tickets to motorists who otherwise would not have been cited. They suggested that officers would issue a ticket rather run the risk of presenting a card that, in effect, invited the motorist to file a complaint.
“It is an unnecessary burden on citizens to police the police,” he said.
Murray, a senior African American legislator whose first data collection bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson in 1998, abandoned his 2000 version in April when Davis made it clear that he would not support it.
The two settled on the business card bill as an alternative. But backers of data collection denounced the compromise as “cowardly” and called Murray a “sellout.”
On Tuesday, however, Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Paramount), chairman of the Public Safety Committee, defended Murray as a political realist.
“I don’t think it’s fair to you that you are [accused of] selling out or cutting a deal to cut a deal,” Washington told Murray.
More to Read
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.