SHERIFF'S OFFICE SAYS CERTAIN PROFILING IS 'TRIED AND TRUE'

The King County Sheriff's Office yesterday agreed to hand over more records
to defense lawyers who are seeking to show that deputies may engage in
racial or economic profiling.

A Sheriff's Office spokesman again sharply denied the allegations. But he
acknowledged deputies use "legitimate" profiling to single out suspicious
people.

"We profile people's actions," spokesman John Urquhart said. "It's a
tried-and-true police technique. We look for actions that indicate
suspicious behavior."

Defense attorneys representing a Seattle man charged in a recent drug case
still say the position of the Sheriff's Office smacks of economic or racial
prejudice.

Sheriff's Office training records, obtained by the defense lawyers and
publicized last week, suggest that at least one deputy was praised for
singling out "dirtbags" in "beater cars" and then finding minor infractions
for which to stop and search them.

The lawyers represent Clarence Davis, 32, a black man who was arrested for
alleged cocaine possession after a traffic stop on Aurora Avenue North in
May. His lawyers argue he was the victim of racial profiling.

The judge in the case ordered still more Sheriff's Office records be turned
over to the defense. Prosecutors representing the sheriff asked the judge
to reconsider. Yesterday, though, the Sheriff's Office withdrew that request.

"We have nothing to hide," Urquhart said. "The Sheriff's Office has a
strict policy against racial profiling. We talk about it. We teach how to
avoid it. We won't tolerate it."

The state Supreme Court last year ruled unconstitutional so-called
pretextual stops, when an officer uses a minor infraction as an excuse to
gather evidence of a larger crime.

Yesterday, Urquhart said the 1998 training records of the Sheriff's Office
contain evidence of pretextual stops, a practice police openly employed
before the 1999 Supreme Court ruling. But since then, Urquhart said, the
policy has changed to forbid such stops.

Yesterday, however, Urquhart said deputies have not ceased profiling in
general.

Deputies routinely single out people in high-risk groups, such as
teenagers, for traffic stops, Urquhart said. And they look for people who
act suspiciously, appear nervous or are driving slightly oddly but not
quite illegally. Often, he said, those people happen to be poor or nonwhite.

"Legitimate profiling is an excellent technique to ferret out criminality,"
he said.

The term "dirtbag," while inappropriate on official documents, is common in
police lingo to refer to suspicious-looking people, Urquhart said, and is
not a broad term for people of a different race or class.

"It's a slang term, like when people call us 'pigs,' " he said.

But the defense attorneys say the explanation from the Sheriff's Office is
weak.

"It's not right that some of us who look a certain way can feel free to
drive and not be searched, while some of us who are of a certain race or
drive certain kinds of cars don't have that security," public defender
Carolyn Morikawa said.

"A person who looks poor or transient still has the same constitutional
protections as you or I."