Cypress Police May Research Race Profiling

The Cypress Police Department is poised to become the first municipal law enforcement agency in Orange County to study whether its officers take part in racial profiling of motorists pulled over in traffic stops.

Dozens of police departments across the state--including the California Highway Patrol--track the race and ethnicity of motorists stopped for traffic violations. The idea is to see if police are more likely to pull over black and Latino motorists. Racial profiling is illegal, but some civil-rights groups claim that it’s a widespread practice.

Officials in many local police agencies oppose conducting this type of research, arguing that it is unnecessary and would prove divisive.

Cypress Police Chief John D. Hensley said he’s heard some of the same criticism since he started discussing the idea. But he maintains that no harm would come from such a study and that it would send a message to the community that the Police Department has nothing to hide.

Hensley stressed he has no evidence that his officers practice racial profiling and said he is interested in seeing how his officers treat ethnic and racial groups.

“I don’t have any concerns [about] how we do policing in our community,” the chief said. “I know our guys are following the rules.”

The state recently offered Cypress $10,000 to monitor the Police Department’s 56 sworn officers; Hensley applied for it last year. The chief said he will meet with his staff Wednesday to craft a final plan, which would then go before the City Council for approval.

Legal experts said the most significant byproduct of Cypress’ research is that officers will think twice when deciding whom to pull over because they know officials will review the race of those receiving citations.

“It’s a good first step,” said Jody Armour, a professor of law at USC Law School. “If I’m an officer and know that someone is keeping track of me, I may be more careful to avoid racially discriminatory stops.”

Despite this possible benefit, other Orange County police agencies said they have no immediate plans to crunch numbers in their own cities.

“The term ‘racial profiling’ is so explosive,” said Irvine Police Lt. Sam Allevato. “Having officers stopping everyone and trying to find out their race just further divides us. A lot of people don’t like to be asked their race.”

Indeed, more than 500 people signed a petition last month to express their outrage after a black woman received a ticket on which a Placentia officer had marked the letter “N”. Placentia police mark the race of motorists on tickets but don’t analyze the data. Authorities said the officer should have used the letter “B” to identify the black motorist.

Eleven states require police to gather and study racial information; several unsuccessful bills have tried to make California No. 12.

The San Diego Police Department was a pioneer in studying arrest statistics by race. Last year, the department released preliminary results of a study suggesting that blacks and Latinos were more likely to be stopped and searched by police than whites or Asian Americans. Police, however, said more data needs to be gathered before conclusions are drawn.

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There is one trial pending in Orange County in which a Korean man was detained by Anaheim police for two days on suspicion of murdering CHP Officer Don Burt Jr. A Vietnamese American man was later arrested and convicted.

The Korean is seeking damages against the police, saying he was a victim of racial profiling.

A few years ago, a lawsuit was filed against Garden Grove police by several Vietnamese teenagers, who said they were stopped because of their ethnicity and clothing and had their pictures taken for inclusion in a book of suspected gang members. The suit was settled and the “gang book” was abandoned by police.

“The difficulty is asking a police officer, who is a human being trying to do the right thing, to discount the stereotypes that he or she has developed over time,” said Brent Romney, a former top Orange County prosecutor who now teaches at Western University College of Law in Fullerton.

The Cypress Police Department grant would allow the agency to have extra personnel and computer software to begin keeping track of at least 10 characteristics of the people stopped by police. The characteristics would include age, gender, ethnicity and how the stop occurred and ended. The information would be sent to the state for further examination.

And that is where interpretation of the data is a concern.

“There’s no direction on how they’re going to use that data,” Cypress Police Capt. James Weuve said. “You can easily have the elderly saying that we’re targeting them for age. You find yourself either defending yourself or explaining those numbers. It certainly doesn’t explain intent.”

Experts said police departments should take the opportunity to assure residents that racial profiling doesn’t occur.

“No one is trying to say the police [are] bad,” said former prosecutor Romney. “Every one of us creates stereotypes. The harm is when it’s a police officer. . . . It’s very important they make every effort to not make these mistakes.”