Racial Profiling

Last month, about one hour after my arrival in Atlanta to visit a family member, I was confronted, once again, with the burden that all black men in this country face on a daily basis. I was standing in front of my relative's home in an upscale neighborhood, surveying the beauty that surrounded me, when a white woman in her early 30s approached me, with her dog, from across the street. She asked me, in a rather hostile voice, "Are you waiting for someone?" I responded by saying, "Good afternoon.

Alabama legislators refused to debate and vote on a bill that would have granted the power to impose death sentences to juries, not elected judges. Alabama's approach to the death penalty is broken on so many levels that it's hard to single out one flaw as being worse than the others. But certainly one of the worst aspects, and one that's pretty much peculiar to Alabama, is a law allowing judges to impose death sentences even when juries recommend against it. This provision of the law puts the awesome power of life and death into the hands of elected judges who are subject to political pressure and can't afford to be labeled soft on crime.

IN BUSH COUNTRY, racial profiling does not exist. Recently, the administration demoted Lawrence A. Greenfeld, the head of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, after he refused to remove from a press release newly compiled data on the racial profiling of black and Latino drivers. In 2001, Mr. Bush appointed Mr. Greenfeld to head the 50-employee agency within the Justice Department. The bureau produces annual reports on police tactics, crime statistics, prisons and drugs. Mr. Greenfeld's problems began when the agency was to announce an important report on racial profiling and traffic stops by the police.

NEW YORK - Federated Department Stores Inc.'s Macy's chain will pay New York state $600,000 to settle complaints of racial profiling of black and Hispanic shoppers by the department store's security guards. The money will cover the state's cost of investigating the allegations, according to an agreement with Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office that was released yesterday. Customers had complained that guards at Macy's East division stores accused them of shoplifting based on their race or ethnicity.

With two native New Yorkers on trial and the community mayor of Harlem on hand to take a stand against what she called racial profiling, a Baltimore County District Court judge delivered his assessment yesterday of a traffic stop that left a police officer and a black motorist struggling on the shoulder of Interstate 95 within inches of the traffic. In the end, Judge Edward P. Murphy convicted the two men of most of the charges against them, sentencing one to a year's probation and the other to 30 days in jail and probation.

THROUGHOUT THE years, the topic of racial profiling has brought a lot of controversy. Some observers allege that it doesn't exist; others dismiss such complaints as the exaggeration of hypersensitive minorities. But President Bush reported in his February 2001 address to Congress that he had directed Attorney General John Ashcroft "to develop specific recommendations to end racial profiling. It is wrong, and we must end it." Historically, race and immigrant status are what tend to distinguish trivial misdeeds from official crimes, and bad crimes from intolerable ones.

WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement authorities said in court documents unsealed yesterday that they suspected a group of Islamic charities in northern Virginia of laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars or more from Saudi Arabia to help finance terrorist attacks by Hamas and other militant groups. Authorities said in documents that they suspected that the network of charities known as the Saar group in Herndon, Va., used an elaborate system of domestic and overseas financial transactions to "blur the trail" of its revenues and disguise that it was sending money to aid overseas terrorist organizations.

NOW THAT the Supreme Court has handed down the decision in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, perhaps the demagoguery can stop. During the months leading up to the June 23 decision, some in the pro-racial preference camp did not have their better moments. Notice the use of "racial preference camp" instead of "affirmative action" supporters. The affirmative action described in President Johnson's Executive Order 11246, issued on Sept. 28, 1965, specifically said things were to be done without regard to race.

Traffic-stop data collected last year show that Howard County police do not racially profile drivers, Police Chief Wayne Livesay said yesterday. Last year, police stopped more than 49,000 drivers, according to the data released yesterday. About 66 percent were white, 28 percent were black, 5 percent were Asian and 1 percent Hispanic. The number of black motorists stopped appeared to be high when compared with U.S. Census Bureau data for Howard, which shows that 14 percent of county residents are black.

Traffic-stop data collected last year show that Howard County police do not racially profile drivers, Police Chief Wayne Livesay said yesterday. Last year, police stopped more than 49,000 drivers, according to the data released yesterday. About 66 percent were white, 28 percent were black, 5 percent were Asian and 1 percent Hispanic. The number of black motorists stopped appeared to be high when compared with U.S. Census Bureau data for Howard, which shows that 14 percent of county residents are black.