HOUSTON BATTLES RACIAL PROFILING

HOUSTON (AP) -- Joining a nationwide movement to end racial profiling,
Houston leaders unveiled a plan Wednesday to study whether the city's
5,000 police officers are stopping citizens simply because of their
skin color.

"We've watched the growing polarization. We've watched the issue of
racial profiling go up on the radar screen, particularly with the
African-American and Hispanic communities, and therefore we want to be
proactive," Mayor Lee Brown said.

The new program, which will begin immediately, requires officers to
enter information on the race, age and gender of all people they stop
or arrest into their patrol car computers. The reports will be placed
in a database for review by Police Chief C.O. Bradford, police
managers and the department's Internal Affairs Division.

Houston is the latest of several metropolitan cities -- including San
Diego and San Jose, Calif. -- to attack racial profiling, which gained
national attention last year through a federal civil rights lawsuit.

A 26-year Miami police veteran claimed he was the victim of racial
profiling when a white Orlando police officers stopped him in 1997 for
alleged minor traffic offenses. The black officer, who was doused with
pepper spray and wrestled to the ground, later was sentenced to one
year of probation for resisting arrest.

In June, President Clinton issued an executive order calling for
federal law enforcement agencies to collect race and gender data in
all stops and arrests. State lawmakers around the nation have
scrambled to pass similar legislation, but so far only North Carolina
has enacted laws.