PLAYING IT SAFE ON PROFILING

Jan. 16, 2001 - If the heated exchanges at a meeting last week are
any indication, the Denver Police and several minority groups have a
considerable gulf to bridge on the question of whether city cops
practice racial profiling. Racial profiling is the practice of
stopping and hassling members of racial or ethnic minorities merely
because of their appearance or status rather than legitimate probable
cause.

One officer at the Northwest Denver meeting of the Racial Profiling
Task Force told community activists outright, "You're saying there's
a problem. We are not going to acknowledge that."

On its face, that sounds like denial, but command officers say the
department doesn't yet know for sure one way or the other if racial
profiling is practiced by any of its officers.

Both Chief Gerry Whitman and Capt. Marcos Vasquez, who is ramrodding
the department's efforts to deal with racial profiling, say that
before that question can be answered definitively, accurate data on
police-citizen contacts must be collected.

Whitman told The Post's editorial board yesterday that the department
hit a software snag that will delay the onset of data gathering until
June instead of this month as originally envisioned. (Part of a
November 2000 settlement of a federal civil rights case stemming from
a 1996 melee between cops and minority citizens at Thomas Jefferson
High School called for collection of data on whether Denver cops
engage in racial profiling.)

The DPD isn't standing still until the facts are in. Vasquez said it
already has begun training officers on cultural awareness and
perceptions of cops by the community, using a nationally acclaimed
training program from Phoenix.

Key, according to Vasquez, is how to gather information without
adding appreciably to the workload of officers. (In Philadelphia, a
federal court order requires police to complete twosided 8-by-11-inch
sheets on each citizen contact.)

Denver's data will be analyzed independently by a university to
determine if, in fact, racial profiling is occurring, Vasquez said.

If some Denver cops practice racial profiling, that will be dealt
with. If there isn't proof, then the police will have to rectify the
perception of racial profiling among minority communities.

Anecdotal evidence collected in a survey by the Colorado Progressive
Coalition indicates that local minority groups perceive themselves as
unfairly targeted by police.

The Post has opposed racial profiling as an unjust violation of civil
rights. We also worry that officers who focus on people of color may
overlook whites who fit the profile of dressing smartly, driving
expensive cars - and engaging in criminal activity.

We applaud the DPD for proceeding, albeit more slowly than expected,
to deal with the issue. We hope Whitman and his lieutenants deal
firmly and decisively with racial profiling, whatever the outcome of
the survey, and move to restore the confidence of people of color in
the department.