Sheriff to Study Racial Data on People Deputies Stop

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has quietly begun tracking the ethnicities of drivers and pedestrians stopped by his deputies, allowing the department to determine whether racial profiling exists in the nation’s largest county.

Baca, along with Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, had previously opposed any form of reporting the demographics of those detained by officers. But Parks will be required to do just that under a settlement negotiated with the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of the LAPD’s Rampart corruption scandal.

While Parks essentially is being forced into it, Baca’s decision to undertake the effort marked a voluntary reversal.

The Board of Supervisors had called on the sheriff 14 months ago to explore the feasibility of compiling the data, but Baca refused. (The supervisors, who were startled by the sheriff’s response, were powerless to force him to do it since he is an independently elected official and they do not have control over those types of department policies.)

The sheriff also had been opposed to past state measures requiring law enforcement agencies to collect and distribute the data. He did, however, back legislation approved last fall and sponsored by state Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), which only required officers to be trained on racial profiling.

Baca said in a Tuesday interview that he changed his mind on the issue recently, after he was approached by “very important leaders in our community,” and that he believes the effort could help build public confidence in the department.

“In the spirit of accountability to the public, I felt we should change and start working on collecting the data,” Baca said.

The effort to track the ethnicities and races of those stopped by sheriff’s deputies began last week. The probable cause for the stop--or any subsequent search--will be collected on the deputies’ mobile computers.

Racial profiling is the term used to describe the alleged police practice of stopping African American and Latino drivers, without cause, in the hope of discovering drugs or outstanding warrants that could lead to arrests. The issue became national news last year after it was discovered that 75% of the motorists stopped by New Jersey state troopers in one part of that state were African American or Latino. Politicians quickly jumped on the issue and law enforcement officials nationwide were forced to respond.

But in Los Angeles, Baca and Parks held firm, arguing that the data could be misconstrued. Officers patrolling in East Los Angeles will predominantly stop Latinos because of the demographics in that area--not because individual officers are targeting that group, Parks believes.

“If someone were to just look at the statistics in a vacuum, it would appear that officers are acting improperly,” said Cmdr. Sharon Papa, the LAPD spokeswoman. Parks, she said Tuesday, would have preferred to examine complaints by motorists and others who believe they were wrongfully stopped.

Baca said he remains concerned about how the statistics will be compiled and reported. He said that individual deputies most likely would not be disciplined based solely on those figures.

“Some deputies may have that fear--that ‘this is a tool designed to remove me from the field,’ ” Baca said. “Before I transfer or remove a deputy from the field based on this data, I would do an investigation. . . . I don’t think you can automatically conclude anything until you look further.”

Likewise, Baca said deputies who work primarily with gangs should not be intimidated by reporting their stops since most gang members are Latinos and African Americans.

But the sheriff said that law enforcement, by the nature of its work, is “susceptible” to racial profiling.

“I believe the potential is always there,” he said. “Because I believe that, it’s further justification for collecting this data.”

To help pay primarily for the costs of computer programming, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the Sheriff’s Department request for a $75,000 state grant. The California Highway Patrol is heading the program, part of a three-year, voluntary effort to gather the data throughout the state.

Law enforcement agencies in San Diego, Sacramento and San Jose now are conducting surveys on racial profiling.

Cmdr. Michael Kenyon, who is overseeing the project for the Sheriff’s Department, said that the money will enhance the department’s efforts but that additional funding probably would have to come from the sheriff’s budget or future state grants.

The Sheriff’s Department has created a so-called racial profiling committee consisting of sworn and civilian employees who will make recommendations to the sheriff on these issues, Kenyon said. Among those, he said, is a public survey to determine attitudes about the department.