POLICE SAY RACE ISN'T A FACTOR IN STOPS

Targeted Motorists Reflect Makeup Of City, Study Says

OCEANSIDE -- An ongoing study of whom Oceanside police are stopping shows
the numbers of blacks and Latinos being pulled over are fairly consistent
with their populations, says Police Chief Michael Poehlman.

"I think everything looks pretty good," Poehlman said. "That doesn't mean
we don't continue to watch."

Reginald Owens, a former president of the North County NAACP, applauded the
police effort, but said, "A study of one's own self by one's own self can
be faulted and biased."

The study, begun in February 2000, has tracked the races of motorists
targeted in police traffic stops and divided them into two groups: Those
who were ticketed and those who were not.

Some 5,053 Latinos were ticketed by police -- 32 percent of the motorists
ticketed during the period. Latinos make up 29 percent of the population.
Some 632 Latinos were stopped but not ticketed -- 27 percent of the total.
Latinos made up more than 30 percent of motorists stopped -- ticketed and
not ticketed.

Blacks counted for 10 percent -- 1,619 -- of the motorists ticketed during
a 12-month period. They constitute 8 percent of the population. Some 387
black motorists were stopped but not ticketed, 16 percent of the total.
Overall, less than 11 percent of motorists stopped -- ticketed and not
ticketed -- were black.

Whites accounted for 50 percent of the motorists ticketed and 49 percent of
the motorists stopped but not ticketed. Whites make up 55 percent of the
city population.

Poehlman said several factors need to be considered when judging the
statistics.

"A lot of people we give tickets to are not residents of Oceanside,"
Poehlman said. "We get a lot of tourists. We're greatly impacted by people
coming in from Mexico."

And thousands of Marines who live on Camp Pendleton drive through
Oceanside, he said.

He said the Police Department was driven to study who officers stop because
of the growing concern over racial profiling nationwide. The department
wanted to study traffic stops before it was asked to do so, Poehlman said.

Oceanside is among about a dozen cities in California that have begun
studying racial profiling, police said.

The San Diego Police Department has been conducting a similar study. The
second half of a yearlong analysis is due in about a week, but San Diego
Police Chief David Bejarano recently said the results are similar to the
initial findings: police stop Latinos and blacks at higher rates than
whites and Asians.

During the first six months of the San Diego study, Latinos and blacks
accounted for 40 percent of traffic stops and 70 percent of police searches
during those stops. They make up about 30 percent of the population.