From the Jul 4 – Jul 10, 2002 issue

News

Complaint Profile

Ten Percent of Last Year's Police Complaints Involved Racial Bias

by Amy Jenniges

On June 27, Mayor Greg Nickels fired off a letter to the Seattle City Council, shooting down their resolution calling for a racial profiling data collection study. Nickels wrote that data collection alone will neither "prove nor disprove the existence of these practices." ["Political Profiling," June 27, Amy Jenniges.]

He's absolutely right. Amassing piles of numbers on who is stopped can't tell us whether a cop's actions are the result of a bias. In fact, nothing short of mind reading can prove or disprove racial profiling.

But we do know that disproportionality exists in traffic stops. Plus, there is a strong perception in the African American community that police are biased. To that end, Nickels promised to devise his own "strategy for... enhancing police-community relations" in the next two weeks.

While Nickels is at the whiteboard drawing up his "strategy," he should talk to Sam Pailca, director of the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA). For the past year, Pailca's been keeping a database of complaints against the police that have allegations (or even hints) of racial bias. Now, she's analyzing and writing a report about her findings, as a follow-up to the annual report she released in June.

By Pailca's estimates, almost 90 of the 886 people who called the OPA from April to December 2001 complained of a racial bias (that's about 10 percent). What's more helpful than the numbers, however, is the testimony from those who called to complain. In Pailca's notes, each entry gives a snapshot of what promp- ted a complaint.

For example, over 20 of those 90 complaints of bias revealed this scenario: An officer pulled someone over and wrote a ticket for a legitimate offense--like speeding--but the driver felt the real reason for the stop was race. Since the officer didn't act improperly or unprofessionally, there was nothing for the OPA to investigate. However, Pailca notes these incidents in her database anyway.

"We're keeping track of these," Pailca says. "It helps show that these are the kinds of circumstances that lead people to complain." That's something that no data collection form will ever show.

amy@thestranger.com