Racial Profiling

Traffic-stop data released recently by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County police departments have renewed a discussion about racial profiling in the community. Figures for early 2002 show that while traffic stops roughly paralleled the demographics of the city and county, black drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to be arrested during a stop by Annapolis police. The county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to ask the Annapolis Human Relations Commission to examine the arrest data for evidence of racial profiling, said Carl O. Snowden, an NAACP member and assistant to County Executive Janet S. Owens.

Traffic-stop data released recently by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County police departments have renewed a discussion about racial profiling in the community. Figures for early 2002 show that while traffic stops roughly paralleled the demographics of the city and county, black drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to be arrested during a stop by Annapolis police. The county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to ask the Annapolis Human Relations Commission to examine the arrest data for evidence of racial profiling, said Carl O. Snowden, an NAACP member and assistant to County Executive Janet S. Owens.

Howard County police released preliminary data on traffic stops by county police yesterday that they said indicate that they do not racially profile drivers. But the numbers show that blacks who are stopped by Howard police are more likely to be arrested or searched than whites who are stopped, and some critics said the early numbers signal racial profiling. Police agencies are required by state law to release 2002 traffic-stop data by March next year. Howard County officials released a portion of their statistics, complied between Jan. 1 and April 30, so the public could "see what we're doing," said police Chief Wayne Livesay.

WHAT MORE is there to say? A white police commander directs his officers -- in writing, astoundingly -- to stop every black man near a Northeast Baltimore bus stop in an attempt to catch a rapist. Within hours of the memo's disclosure on a radio talk show, the police chief investigates, deplores the order as intolerable and illegal and summons the commander, who promptly retires. Done. Dealt with. Over. What more is there to say? Plenty. More to say and more to ask. About race and the conversations that don't take place because of it. The memo couldn't have been plainer.

WASHINGTON - Extending a program that critics called racial profiling, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced plans yesterday to seek voluntary interviews with 3,000 foreign nationals in the United States to learn more about the threat of terrorism. Ashcroft said the effort would be similar to the Justice Department's earlier attempt, begun in November, to interview about 5,000 foreign nationals in this country. The attorney general said those interviews, which targeted mostly young men of Middle Eastern descent, produced "significant" leads and "fostered new trust" with Arab communities.

Baltimore police officials are sending top commanders to a racial profiling seminar this month and have asked the U.S. Justice Department to help train front-line supervisors about the issue in light of a major's memo last month urging officers to stop all black men near a bus stop. Officials with the Justice Department's Community Relations Service will train about 50 lieutenants about professionalism, traffic stops and profiling, police said. Supervisors will then pass along the knowledge to the department's 3,200 officers.

A top police commander retired abruptly yesterday amid accusations of racial profiling for recently urging officers to stop "every black male" late at night at a bus stop where a rape occurred. The Feb. 22 directive by Maj. Donald E. Healy, commander of the Northeastern District, came to light yesterday during a morning radio talk show and prompted angry criticism from the city's black leaders, at least one of whom phoned Mayor Martin O'Malley demanding Healy's removal. "I'm deeply sorry if I offended any citizens," said the 52-year-old Healy, who is white, in a statement released by police at a hastily called news conference after he met with Commissioner Edward T. Norris.

An American-Islamic civil rights organization is demanding an apology from Northwest Airlines for allegedly forcing a 17-year-old Muslim high school student to remove her head scarf at a Baltimore-Washington International Airport security checkpoint, the equivalent of a public strip search, a spokesman for the Washington-based group said. In a letter to the Minneapolis-St.Paul-based carrier yesterday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the incident Dec. 18 was an example of religious harassment.

The Baltimore Police Department will soon equip 50 patrol cars with surveillance cameras, saying it will reduce police brutality and racial profiling complaints, and help police work more effectively. The pilot program will be funded by the Abell Foundation, which announced yesterday that it awarded police $275,000 -- $225,000 for cameras and $50,000 for the department's Environmental Crimes Unit. The cameras, which cost $4,500 each and will be installed in patrol cars in one of the city's nine districts, will be monitored for one year by police so they can compare that precinct to other city jurisdictions without cameras.

During the past month, police officers at two Baltimore County precincts have had to document nearly every traffic stop they made. Now, the department is ready to analyze data from those stops -- more than 500 in all -- and to evaluate the effectiveness of a system it has developed to detect racial profiling. The monthlong test run is part of the department's effort to comply with a new state law that requires all law enforcement agencies with more than 100 officers to have a data collection system in place by Jan. 1. The information will be used to help state officials decide if police are practicing racial profiling -- stopping someone because of their race.