Ex-NYPD Commissioner Applauded as Reform-Minded Customs Chief

Amanda Buritica’s ordeal symbolized the problems that Raymond Kelly inherited when he became head of the U.S. Customs Service.

In 1998, Buritica, a teacher from Port Chester, N.Y., was returning from a Hong Kong vacation. When a San Francisco Customs inspector noticed that she was a native of Colombia, she was searched, X-rayed, given laxatives and held 22 hours. No drugs were found; she won a $400,000 settlement.

The case left a knot in the gut of Kelly, an ex-Marine and former New York City police commissioner who took over Customs, the nation’s oldest law enforcement agency, later that year.

“It was horrendous, what happened to her,” Kelly, 59, said in a recent interview. “We were letting individual inspectors decide who to stop. There was no clear policy.”

When Kelly arrived, Customs had escalating complaints of racial profiling and abuse of personal searches, especially from minority women, said Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who co-chairs the Congressional Black Caucus task force on law enforcement misconduct.

“People were in tears at our hearings and on radio talk shows telling of their humiliation,” Davis recalls.

Now, two years later, Davis praises Kelly’s efforts to curb racial profiling and make other improvements. Davis says the number of complaints to his office has dropped from several a month to zero under Kelly.

“We’re not letting up with our scrutiny,” Davis said, “but we are surprised at what he has accomplished.”

The actions include: tightening the chain of command; rewriting an inspectors’ handbook; transferring scores of supervisors who ran problem ports; and establishing a close relationship with the FBI and CIA. Kelly also created or enlarged Customs units in intelligence, intellectual property and art.

Racial profiling was the most explosive issue facing Kelly, said Paul Browne, his senior advisor. Kelly says he saw no evidence of profiling during his tour as NYPD commissioner from August 1992 to January 1994. “I certainly would have addressed it head-on,” he said.

At Customs, Kelly said, most complaints dealt with personal searches, which, he acknowledged, “can be traumatic. . . . Many have voiced concerns about being touched.”

Now a supervisor must approve a personal search or a pat-down. If an X-ray or a more intrusive search is necessary, the highest-ranking port supervisor must authorize the transfer to a hospital, and only after a staff attorney is consulted.

The result: The agency says searches dropped 70% last year, while discoveries of drugs and other contraband still rose 23%.

Kelly, who also is an attorney, conceded that he saw indications that a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos were being searched. So he ordered a daily computer breakdown of each detainee’s ethnicity.

“You can’t look into people’s minds and see why they stopped someone, but you can identify a pattern, if it exists, and deal with it,” Kelly said. “Racial profiling is wrong. It is against our policy and our practice. It is also unwise as a law enforcement strategy. . . . Smugglers come in all shapes, colors and sizes.”

Those being searched may now opt for a scanner that sees through clothing but not the skin or body. The American Civil Liberties Union has called it “an electronic strip search.”

“We think it is worse than a pat-down,” said ACLU spokeswoman Emily Whitfield. “It’s like someone undressing you with their eyes. It’s so invasive, it shows the outline of your genitals, and can read the date on a coin in your pocket.”

Kelly said the photos are disposed of unless they prove that someone has carried contraband.

Customs agents have broad authority to conduct personal searches, provided they have reasonable suspicion. Some constitutional rights do not apply at a border; people are not free to refuse to be searched, nor are they entitled to a phone call, even to an attorney.

The mission of Customs, created in 1789, is to collect tariffs and thwart contraband.

Kelly oversees 19,000 employees, including inspectors at 301 ports of entry, 70 high-speed boats and 120 aircraft, among them a radar plane that can sweep 200,000 square miles.

Its officers have intercepted fighter jet parts, fake caviar and embargo-banned Iraqi oil. A routine stop last year led to the arrest of an Algerian accused of crossing the Canadian border with a car trunk filled with bomb materials. They seized 400,000 tablets of the hallucinogen Ecstasy three years ago, and more than 9 million this year alone.

About 1 in every 2,000 travelers is searched. Of those searched last year, 15% were carrying drugs or contraband, the agency says.

Sometimes stolen goods turn up in the most unlikely places.

In February, agents in Kelly’s new art unit entered the Park Avenue apartment of collector Michael Steinhardt, a Metropolitan Museum board member. They seized a gold platter from 450 BC that had been unearthed in Italy in the 1980s.

Steinhardt, who was not charged, had paid $1.2 million for it. The platter was returned to Italy’s Ministry of Culture, escorted by Italian police.

Last year Customs collected more than $20 billion in tariffs and processed a trillion dollars’ worth of trade.

Kelly is known as a demanding leader who works at an exhausting pace. He visits border crossings unannounced to hear inspectors’ complaints, and he’s known to jump into a drug surveillance plane or speedboat to view the front lines.

“People want direction,” Kelly said. “They want their opinions respected, but they want someone to be in charge.”