ACLU to discuss new policy prohibiting police profiling

Published 11:00 am Thursday, August 14, 2014

A new anti-bias policy that explicitly forbids Eugene police officers from stopping anyone based on characteristics such as a person’s race, sexual orientation or economic status has been met with mixed reviews.

Some minority leaders say they welcome the policy — but are wary of a separate pilot project in which some officers will begin entering demographic information gathered at police stops into a new computer system. The demographic collection, which is to be used departmentwide eventually, is intended to address criminal trends.

The demographic information collected would include the purpose of an initial traffic stop, the number of passengers in the vehicle, whether the race of the individuals inside the vehicle was known before the stop, and whether the vehicle ultimately was searched or seized.

The American Civil Liberties Union will host a “civil conversation” tonight at the Eugene Public Library about the anti-bias policy and demographic collection project. Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns is expected to attend.

Most police agencies in the United States either already have or are working on similar anti-bias policies, Kerns has said in the past. The Eugene department already has a policy outlining proper stops and contacts, and it states that officers may never rely solely on someone’s race or ethnicity to establish proof required to detain or arrest a person.

The new anti-bias policy, or “professional stops policy,” seeks to explicitly prohibit such profiling. The policy states that police will “provide equal protection under the law to the people we contact and provide it fairly and without discrimination toward any individual or group.”

The policy is required for the Police Department to become accredited, said Carter Hawley, a police department management analyst. The department is pursuing credentials with the Oregon Accreditation Alliance, which seeks to improve the quality of law enforcement across the state.

Like many law enforcement agencies, Eugene police occasionally face allegations that officers target people based on race or economic status.

Some Eugene residents, including a former Eugene police commissioner who participated in the anti-bias policy’s formation, have taken issue with what they regard as the bias of some police in general, as well as with the collection of demographic information during police stops.

“People of color, especially the elderly minority population, have been waiting for an (anti-bias) policy like this for a long time,” said Juan Carlos Valle, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens and former Police Commission member. “The actual policy is a good policy. But it does not prohibit racial profiling. It mentions racial profiling briefly, but it does not actually direct an officer not to racially profile.”

Valle recently resigned from the Police Commission. He declined to say whether his reservations about the anti-bias policy or demographic collection project directly contributed to his decision to leave the panel.

Valle, along with Eric Richardson, president of the Eugene-Springfield chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be the featured speakers at tonight’s ACLU discussion.

ACLU member Jim Stauffer calls the anti-bias policy “laudable.”

“But groups who have experienced biased policing have concerns about the development and execution of the project,” Stauffer added in a statement.

Follow Chelsea on Twitter @chelseagorrow. Email chelsea.gorrow@registerguard.com.