Despite report DC May not Collect Racial Profiling Data

Thursday, August 19, 2004 at 06:51AM
TheSpook

• DC Police Chief Believes that Racial Profiling may not be a problem because there are a proportionate number of Black and Latino Police on the force. (As if Black Cops can't be foul also! BW bets that the thousands of young Black and Brown men who are followed, stopped  and pulled over everyday by Black & Latino DC Police Officers would disagree.)

Civil rights groups and a key  D.C. Council member expressed concern this week that city police officials are backing away from plans to collect data on traffic and pedestrian stops to measure possible racial profiling. Since 2001, D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey has publicly pledged on several occasions to collect such data, saying it would provide "important insight" into the activities of officers. But Ramsey said this week that he has not decided whether to go ahead with plans to track the race and gender of people stopped by the police. The Police Foundation, which was hired by the city to study racial profiling, issued a draft report in May that recommended that the department gather the data. Ramsey noted that the police force nearly mirrors the population of the District -- about 65 percent of officers are black, 25 percent are white and 8 percent are Hispanic. [more ]

Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).