RACIAL PROFILING IN AIRPORT STOP? YOU BE THE JUDGE

Should we take comfort in the fact that our U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration is protecting all of us from a 56-year-old Bible-toting
woman? Or should we wake up to the idea that racial profiling is
happening all around us?

You be the judge.

Last Monday morning, Bonni Rhodes-Berg, a lifelong Twin Cities
resident, returned home after a nine-day visit with her 30-year-old
son, a schoolteacher in Los Angeles. Rhodes-Berg came home on a
jam-packed Northwest Airlines red-eye flight, leaving L.A. at 12:40
a.m. and arriving at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at
6:10 a.m. She was exhausted when she got off the plane. She confesses
she probably wasn't looking her best.

"I didn't have any makeup, I was wearing jeans and I was wearing a
baseball cap," she said.

She also was lugging a carry-on bag that contained her toiletries,
pajamas, a paperback book, her Bible and a book of devotional studies.
Because she was tired, when she stepped onto one of the airport's
moving sidewalks, she set the bag at her feet. This, she later
learned, was seen as a suspicious activity by the ever-vigilant DEA.

Rhodes-Berg collected her other piece of luggage at the baggage claim
and moved toward the exits, planning to catch an express shuttle to
her home in downtown Minneapolis. Because getting out of the airport
is an almost-comical exercise in ups and downs, the weary traveler
decided to use an elevator to get closer to the exit. Before the
elevator door closed, however, she was joined by a man and a woman. As
she got off the elevator, the two flashed their badges: DEA.

"They said their job was to watch for people bringing in money for
laundering and drugs," Rhodes-Berg said. "I said to them, 'What
criteria did you use for stopping me? Is it because I'm an
African-American?' They said they noticed that my [carry-on] bag was
heavy."

The agents said that they wanted to see identification and that they
wanted to check her bags. She told the agents she resented being
stopped. She said she was told to not be "indignant."

But Rhodes-Berg was indignant -- and stunned and angry. She's a good
citizen with a good career, the mother of two sons who have grown to
become good citizens. She's the daughter of the late Walter Rhodes,
who for two decades was a distinguished Minneapolis cop and who also
spent 10 years as a fingerprinting specialist with the state Bureau of
Criminal Apprehension.

"When you're brought up by a police officer, it's made very clear to
you that you'd better not get into trouble," Rhodes-Berg said. "My dad
brought us up to be proud, that we're just as good as anybody else. I
have always had this attitude, 'Something like this is never going to
happen to me.' Then, it does."

The moment she saw the DEA badges, Rhodes-Berg remembered articles she
had read about what to do when stopped for being black.

"Cooperate and deal with it later," she said.

She cooperated with the agents.

It should be noted that legally Rhodes-Berg did not have to cooperate
with the agents. Carrying luggage that appears heavy is not reasonable
cause to be stopped and searched.

But Stephen Cooper, an attorney and the former head of Minnesota's
Human Rights Commission, said Rhodes-Berg's instincts probably were
correct.

"She had the right to say no," Cooper said. "But as a practical
matter, she probably did the right thing. I can't say what these two
officers would have done, but in many circumstances they would have
concocted an excuse that could have created more problems for her."

The DEA sleuths went through her carry-on bag, discovering the Bible
and the devotional studies book. The female agent went through the
larger piece of luggage and commented that she uses the same soy
supplement that Rhodes-Berg uses. The agents closed the bags, thanked
Rhodes-Berg and went about their business. The incident lasted about
20 minutes.

Rhodes-Berg has called the offices of politicians at all levels. She
wants answers to why she was stopped.

"I can't get over it," she said. "When I tell people at work what
happened, I start crying. I feel violated and humiliated. They saw my
skin color and that's all I'm judged on."

Mike Hillebrand, a DEA spokesman from the agency's Chicago office,
said the answers to why Rhodes-Berg was stopped are simple.

In "Operation Jetway," he said, agents frequently are on the lookout
for passengers on red-eye flights because couriers often take those
flights, believing that agents won't get up so early in the morning to
nab them. Surely, he said, DEA agents wouldn't have picked out
Rhodes-Berg because she is black.

"DEA does not promote racial profiling," he said. "It's unethical and
it's illegal."

Hillebrand was told Rhodes-Berg was carrying a Bible and devotional
studies in her bag.

"Did they let the lady go?" he asked.