POLICE BALK AT TRACKING RACIAL DATA
Profiling: Davis' Plea Falls On Deaf Ears For Most Valley Law Enforcers.

Despite last week's plea from Gov. Gray Davis, most Silicon Valley
police departments have no intention of tracking the race of drivers
pulled over for traffic stops.

While the biggest departments have volunteered to collect the
information, they had already agreed to do so before the governor
urged them to, according to an informal Mercury News survey of
law-enforcement agencies.

Those departments that don't plan to collect the data -- most of them
in smaller communities -- are simply relieved that the governor vetoed
a bill last week that would have required every department in
California to do so.

``It would be just another statistic we'd have to keep,'' said
Hollister Police Chief Bill Pierpoint.

Fifteen of 27 departments contacted said they don't plan to collect
the data, eight said they will, and four haven't decided. Among those
that have volunteered to track the stops are the departments in San
Jose, San Francisco and Oakland -- the three largest cities in the
Bay Area. The California Highway Patrol, which patrols all the
freeways in the region, also has agreed to keep the statistics. That
agency, too, agreed to track the statistics before Davis announced --
on the day he vetoed the bill -- that he would direct it to do so.

Civil-rights advocates have called on police to collect the data in an
effort to measure the scope of ``racial profiling'' -- a practice
whereby police allegedly pull over minority drivers for minor traffic
infractions in the hope of finding something more serious, such as
drugs.

Minorities insist they are routinely pulled over for ``DWB,'' driving
while black or brown -- stopped without cause simply because of the
color of their skin. But police insist they don't make race-based stops.

In his veto message, Davis said racial profiling was not widespread
enough to warrant mandatory data-collection.

Whether they have agreed or refused to collect the data, police chiefs
across the region contended that racial profiling isn't common, and
most insisted that it doesn't occur in their departments.

Some chiefs said it makes no sense to gather information about a
problem that, in their opinion, doesn't exist.

``Police departments really abhor the idea of profiling,'' said Police
Chief Steve Schwab of Morgan Hill. ``It's not something we do.''

But others said collecting the data would be a useful way to show that
profiling doesn't happen.

Mike Maehler, chief of the Mountain View police, is concerned that so
many people believe the police are making stops for racist reasons. He
hopes that collecting data will build confidence between police and
minority communities.

``If data collection can help us understand the issue and help build
that trust, then it's a good tool,'' he said.

San Mateo County Sheriff Don Horsley agrees that police must work to
improve their credibility in the eyes of many minorities. But he
doesn't believe that gathering the data is an effective way to weed
out bad cops.

``If we have officers out there who are targeting minorities -- and
I'm sure we do -- I don't think that making them record the race of
their stops is going to stop it,'' he said. ``Officers can make a few
more stops of white drivers to even their percentages or not record
some stops.''

Horsley said the more important mission is to find ways to address the
causes of racism in law enforcement.

Campbell Police Chief David Gullo agreed that there are more effective
ways to ensure that officers make stops based only on reasonable
suspicion, not race. His department has installed video cameras in
patrol cars, so that all traffic stops are recorded.

He also relies on department supervisors to monitor the conduct of
their officers. ``I expect them to know what their officers are doing
and ensure that they're treating people fairly,'' Gullo said.

In San Jose, where police began collecting the data in June,
department brass said the program hasn't resulted in any great expense
or caused any procedural problems. Still, officers in some smaller
departments cited concerns about costs and procedural burdens in
explaining why they would not collect the data.

Area civil-rights advocates applauded the departments that have
volunteered to collect the data. But incomplete data, they said, will
be insufficient.

Even though the biggest departments will collect the data, ensuring
that most stops in the region are counted, it is important for all
departments to track the stops, they said.

``You can't just do random areas and then think everything's OK,''
said Tony Alexander, president of the Silicon Valley African-American
Democratic Coalition. ``Racism doesn't happen in random areas. It
happens statewide.''

In some smaller communities with mostly white populations, the
percentage of minority drivers pulled over might be particularly high,
said Michelle Alexander, an attorney in the San Francisco office of
the American Civil Liberties Union.

In such towns, Alexander said, police sometimes conduct what she calls
``border-patrol stops,'' pulling over minorities on the misguided
assumption that they don't belong in the community.

``It's extremely important to have a statewide data collection to
identify those law-enforcement agencies that may be pulling over
people of color at a disproportionate rate,'' Alexander said.

While the data itself is not a panacea, Alexander said, it would help
end what she called the ``cycle of accusations and denials'' between
minorities and police. Only when the scope of the problem is
documented, she said, can police and community members focus on how to
solve it.
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Contact Ben Stocking at bstocking@sjmercury.com or (408)
278-3439.