DAVIS VETOES BILL AIMED AT RACIAL PROFILING

LAWS: Forcing Police To Keep Records On The Race Of People They Stop
Would Be Too Big A Burden,The Governor Says.

SACRAMENTO- An attempt to gauge possible race based vehicle stops by
the Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies by forcing them
to track motorists' ethnicity was vetoed Tuesday by Gov. Gray Davis,
who said the controversial bill could cost too much and place a heavy
burden on police.

The Democratic governor said in his veto message about the
"driving-while-black or brown" bill that he found so called racial
profiling "abhorrent."

But Davis said there is "no evidence that this practice is taking
place statewide requiring sweeping legislation that mandates state
scrutiny of every local law-enforcement agency in California."

The governor's action was immediately criticized by the American Civil
Liberties Union, which described racial profiling "as the leading
civil rights issue of the 1990s" The ACLU earlier filed a federal suit
against two state agencies - the CHP and the Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement - accusing both of racial profiling.

The bill by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, would have required the
CHP and major police and sheriff's departments to record detailed
information on their traffic enforcement activities, including total
stops, the number of arrests, warnings and citations, the number of
searches and the reasons for the stops.

Murray, who is black, was pulled over in Beverly Hills in his Corvette
a few hours after an election-night victory last year. He said he was
never given a reasonable explanation for the stop. He has since filed
a lawsuit accusing police officers of targeting blacks and other
minority group members in traffic stops; that case is pending.

A number of similar cases have occurred across the
country.

"I'm going to reintroduce the bill. This issue is not going away,"
Murray said shortly after the governor announced his decision.

"This is a problem across the nation. And now the most populous state
with the largest minority population is going to do nothing about it,"
Murray added.

The governor noted that at least four major departments - in San
Diego, San Francisco, San Jose and Alameda County - already compile
such information on their vehicle stops, and that other departments
plan to follow suit. Moreover, the CHP plans to begin compiling
information voluntarily beginning in January.

And although Davis in his veto message said he opposed the gathering
of such information at the state level, he urged local officials to
demand that their law-enforcement agencies do exactly the same thing.