Police Chief Rosie Sizer finally presented her plan to
address racial profiling to city council last week. Two and a
half years overdue, it suggests increased recruitment of minority
candidates and better “tolerance” training for police officers.
However, there will be no collection of individual officers’ stop
statistics to see which officers might be racially
profiling—Sizer seems more concerned about cops who stop too many
black people being “scapegoated” in the press, than making sure
any bad apples are held accountable. (Should we thank the police
union?)
Mayor Sam Adams cited the president’s recent “beer summit”
(i.e., the Henry Louis Gates incident) at the White House as evidence
that Portland is ahead of a national trend on discussing racial
profiling by police. Afterward, Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman commended the chief for “taking this issue on.” He said, “It would be
easy not to take it on.”
Still, Sizer proved once again last week that she is a police
officer first and a politician second. She scoffed at concerns raised
by Oregon Action Executive Director Jo Ann Bowman about the
bureau’s training videos for traffic stops—which feature a
“pretty blonde woman,” in Bowman’s words. Eventually, the chief agreed
to let community groups assess the videos after prompting from City
Commissioner Amanda Fritz, but in the mayor’s words, this is a
“flash point” that Bowman has been raising for years.
Sizer also acknowledged the risk that the bureau’s recent, more
proactive efforts at gang enforcement could bring allegations of
racial profiling, but said the cops were in the process of “sorting”
the community. She seemed a little too defiant on this point, too, for
my liking.
The real fireworks came when Sizer hit back at council for
suggesting that her cops be required to give out a business card every time they contact a citizen. “I’d thank you in advance not to try
to micromanage how we conduct traffic stops,” she said, saying
officers would have to wait until 2011 to start giving out business
cards when new printers are fitted in patrol cars.
“Sometimes bureau heads use the word ‘micromanaging’ to avoid
doing anything the council wants,” said City Commissioner Randy
Leonard. “I think what we’re trying to do is manage the issue.”
Burrrrrn! It was nice to see someone cut through the talk and
actually force the chief to do something for a change. Though Sizer
continued to resist, council dropped the hammer, giving her two
weeks to comply. Finally, some “micromanaging” I can believe in.
The fact that Chief Rosie Sizer is still refusing to collect stop data from individual cops [in order to try & identify & weep-out exceptionally racist, abusive pigs] further demonstrates that the PPB has NO real intentions to serve the public. The police shall ALWAYS remain racist-as-Hell, abusive of their power, & un-accountable for anything that they do!
The law-abiding citizens of this city should be deeply troubled by our “public saftey”(Orwelian for “gestapo-state”) dept.
Didn’t the original article on this say that Chief Sizer HAS collected officer-specific information, but can’t get permission from the Police Union to publish it?
So, if your job is gang enforcement, and 95% of all suspects and victims in gang shootings are black and hispanic, are you racist for stopping more blacks and hispanics? Or are you reverse-racist if you stop 25% whites, cause that is disproportionate to the crimes? I am confused. It seemed to make sense that you go where the crime is, but Matt has me all dizzy.
@ Confused —
Let me UNconfuse it for you.
Targeting known gang-members, WHEN THEY’VE BEEN SUSPECTED OF COMMITTING A CRIME, (gang affilation in of itself is NOT [yet] a crime) is quite justified. I support targeting criminals. But the cops seem to think that ALL Black Peope are criminals. They also seem to think all attractive women are whores. If a Black man is pulled over & stopped for NO ligitimate reason, THAT is not gang enforcement! THAT’S racist-profiling!
And if we were to go by the sheer merits ov “profiling” according to your analysis confused*, then we should be detaining WHITE, CHRISTIAN, MALES b/t 25-65 every time there’s a shooting or an Amber-Alert has been issued!
DamosA,
It sounds like you are grouping all police officers as evil and racist, when quite frankly, that kind of dogmatic view is the same thing that you are accusing the police of having. Implying that all police officers are racist, that no police officer has any intent of serving the public, and that they are all abusive of their power is strikingly similar to the idea that all black people are criminals or that all attractive women are whores.
Yes, there are some police officers that are racially profiling, but there are others that are good, upstanding officers of the law who are working against that. Just like there are some African Americans who break the law, and others who do not.
Before we insist one group stops stereotyping us, let’s try not to stereotype them.
And, for the record, I do believe that in Amber Alert cases it is almost always white, Christian males between 25-65 who do get detained. That is documented.