Who, me?

Even you fit airport's drug courier profile

CHARLES LASZEWSKI STAFF WRITER

Jim Bush got off a Northwest Airlines flight in Orlando and was walking
through the terminal when he noticed a man following him. It spooked him,
in part because there had been a rash of tourists robbed and shot in Florida.

Bush ducked into a bathroom, but the man followed. Bush finally shook him
by jumping onto a tram to the main terminal.

But when Bush arrived at the luggage carousel the man was there and
identified himself as an agent with the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration. The agent told Bush he wanted to search his duffel bag.
Bush didn't see any options, he said, so he surrendered the bag and
watched, along with others waiting for their luggage, as the agent rummaged
through his belongings.

``I felt real uncomfortable,'' said the 48yearold Bush. ``I didn't do
anything. He said, `You've got dirty laundry in here.' I said, I know, (I
left in) a rush.''

Bush, who owns a floral shop on the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, was not
carrying drugs and had made the 1994 trip to Florida from the Twin Cities
because his son had called from a hospital. Eventually, satisfied that a
request from police at MinneapolisSt. Paul International Airport to
question Bush had yielded nothing, the DEA agent sent him on his way.

Bush's experience is not unique. Each year, hundreds of innocent travelers
flying to and from the Twin Cities are stopped and questioned for suspicion
of carrying drugs.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press examined records of the airport police and found:

At least 8 of 10 people stopped by authorities for suspicion of carrying
drugs are carrying nothing;

Neither the airport police nor the DEA, which oversees the DEA
MinneapolisSt. Paul International Airport Task Force, evaluates whether
stopping people without any evidence is an efficient method for thwarting
drug trafficking;

Because of weaknesses in the federal Freedom of Information Act, the DEA is
able to block requests for information on how many people they detain at
the airport but do not charge with a crime.

Close encounters

Nearly every day, someone is stopped at the airport by a member of the
airport drug task force, which includes the DEA, airport police, the
Hennepin County Sheriff's office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension. Airport Police Lt. Robert Hale outlined how airport stops are
made:

Officers identify themselves, tell travelers they are not under arrest and
ask if they wouldn't mind answering a few questions. If the travelers
refuse, they are free to go, Hale said.

Most, however, agree to talk. Officers frequently ask travelers about where
came from and where they are going, how long they are staying and look at
tickets, boarding passes and identification. If there are discrepancies, or
something else seems suspicious, then luggage is searched, said Hale and
Patrick Doman, agent in charge of the Twin Cities DEA office. If the search
is refused, officers sometimes will tell travelers they can leave the
terminal, but their luggage will be held until a drugsniffing dog can
check it.

How consensual are those conversations? Hale was adamant that travelers who
don't want to talk are allowed to go on their way. But Minneapolis criminal
lawyer Charles Hawkins, who has dealt with drug cases, said the officers
control the situation.

``Do you have to submit?'' Hawkins asked. ``No. But we are conditioned,
since we were children, to submit to police and a show of authority. They
play on it. If you say no, they will say, `Why won't you talk to us?' They
won't let you go until they are satisfied.''

Long arm of the law

Still, despite the hassle and embarrassment of being stopped at the
airport, random searches do not appear to be an efficient way to catch drug
couriers. It's far more likely that innocent travelers, or those carrying
miniscule amounts of drugs, are stopped than drug dealers.

But neither the airport police nor the DEA, which oversees the airport drug
task force, evaluates whether stopping people based only on a profile and
without any evidence is an efficient way of thwarting drug trafficking.

Police officers and narcotics agents also conduct the same type of
interdiction at the Twin Cities' downtown bus depots and the Amtrak train
station. Last year, St. Paul police were routinely boarding buses arriving
from Chicago and Detroit and asking to search the passengers' luggage.

Most law officials justify the interdiction saying that if it stops even a
small amount of drugs, it is worth it.

``I think it is effective, just based on the amount seized,'' said Patrick
Doman, agent in charge of the Twin Cities DEA office. ``It's that much less
into the street, that much less going into the pocket, making them wealthy.''

Michael Freeman, Hennepin County attorney, whose office prosecutes the
smaller quantities seized at the airport, supports the effort, too.

``We know drugs get through the airport,'' he said. ``Anything we can do to
slow down the amount, it's good as long as it doesn't walk on the
Constitution.''

But Paul Engh, a Minneapolis criminal lawyer, said the airport stops are
not based on anything and violate U.S. Constitutional Fourth Amendment
protections against unwarranted police searches and seizures.

``They just peg the redeye flight from Los Angeles and if you look like a
minority, they stop you,'' Engh said. ``You have a right to be free from
unreasonable search and seizure, just as you have that right in your house.
It's the law we've had for 200 years. It's in the Constitution. Until you
are afflicted by it, you think it is no big deal.''

Looking at DEA difficult

A review of airport police records for 1994, 1995 and 1996 found that about
70 percent of contacts police make based on drug courier profiles result in
no reports being written. Travelers can move on after a minute or two.

In 1994, there were 275 total narcoticsrelated incidents by airport police
and 198 were contacts only where nothing further happened after the initial
chat by an officer. In 1995, it was 205 out of 288, and in 1996, it was 241
out of 349.

Figuring in cases where reports were made because searches were done, and
the results were negative or only a tiny amount of drugs were found, at
least 81 percent to 86 percent of the people stopped were not drug couriers.

Those numbers are only for reports done by the airport police department,
however, which handles the bulk of the reports. Because of weaknesses in
the federal Freedom of Information Act, the DEA is able to block requests
for information on how many people they detain at the airport but do not
charge with a crime. Because of that there is no way for citizens or
scholars to keep tabs on the DEA.

It was impossible to determine from the airport police cases whether
minorities were targeted in high numbers, because most of the contacts did
not have a report written or race indicated. Race is not supposed to be a
factor, Freeman said. Defense lawyers are convinced it is.

Neither Doman nor Hale contradicted the Pioneer Press numbers because they
said their agencies have never examined how many people are stopped in
relation to how many are carrying significant amounts of drugs.

``I doubt we ever will look at it,'' Hale said.

Instead, the two men pointed to other figures to justify the airport task
force's work. Airport police department records show that for the past 11
years, they have confiscated, on average, drugs with a street value of $5
million. They also have arrested anywhere from 27 to 132 people a year.

Unfortunately, those statistics don't tell much about how many drugs were
seized or what type were taken. Hale admitted that assigning a street value
is an imperfect science and can vary from person to person. A review of
airport records indicates that for the two most popular drugs, seizures in
those three years have ranged from 533 pounds to 1,188 pounds of marijuana
and from 7.75 kilograms to 16.6 kilograms of cocaine. A kilogram equals 2.2
pounds.

Nor does it break out the cases where police had investigative information
and had a good idea when the drugs would arrive and who would be carrying
them. Doman said he hasn't checked that, but his best guess from personal
experience would be that 75 percent of the arrests and seizures come from
investigation or ``previous knowledge. It's mostly done through leads.''

Random stops defended

The low success rate found by the Pioneer Press fits with the little
evidence produced elsewhere. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall,
in his 1991 dissent in the case Florida vs. Bostick, said that the
``percentage of successful drug interdictions is low,'' and referred to
another case where it was found that in checking people on 100 buses,
police arrested only seven for drugs.

Neither Hale nor Doman see the random stops based on behavior as an
infringement on people's right to travel about freely, nor do they see a
reason to change.

``The stops that take place occur because of behavior exhibited by
individuals,'' Hale said. ``Ninetynine point nine percent of the people go
through the airport and have no concerns because they are not involved.''

But Bush, the florist, and Mark Beaver saw it as a huge intrusion.

``No options were given to me,'' Bush said of his stop in Orlando. `` `I'm
the DEA, I'm going to look in your bag.' But it's a traumatic experience.
And I got nervous. I think it's Gestapo, it's like Germany. We've got some
freedoms. That is why I think we should pursue policies that don't
jeopardize those freedoms.''

Beaver said when he was stopped and detained for 30 minutes at
MinneapolisSt. Paul International airport, he feared he might miss his
first appointment, so he spent the whole time ``letting them feel superior
to me,'' offering no resistance and hoping they would go easy on him. They
eventually issued a petty misdemeanor ticket to him for possession of a
small amount of marijuana.

``It feels like . . . communism, it feels like a police state,'' he said.
``It's not right, for sure. You shouldn't steal people's rights from them.''

Profiles made to order

No one is critical of airport drug seizures that result from an
investigation where police know drugs will be arriving in the possession of
a certain person.

The problem is with random stops, sparked by socalled drug courier
profiles. While authorities would not discuss specifics of the profile,
enough has been revealed in court cases across the country to know what is
involved.

There are two problems with the profile, critics contend. Many of the
behaviors are contradictory and many of them are shared by innocent travelers.

Charles Becton, a former judge with the North Carolina Court of Appeals,
studied court cases involving drug courier profiles and wrote about it for
the North Carolina Law Review. The behaviors that spurred airport stops
included:

Making no ticket reservation and making a recent reservation;

Taking direct flights to and from source cities such as Miami, Los Angeles
and Dallas and taking circuitous routes from source cities;

Leaving the terminal directly in a hurried manner, or staying at the
terminal a long time;

Carrying no luggage and carrying two suitcases that appear to be heavy.

In other words, the profile might fit just about any harried traveler
catching a flight.

Becton, from his Raleigh, N.C., law office, said the profiles are added to
and subtracted from depending on the circumstances of the case.

``There are all sorts of profiles,'' Becton said. ``They are essentially
what behavior you exhibit at the time'' you are stopped.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the district that includes Minnesota,
overturned the conviction of Coye Denise Green for possession of cocaine
because the stop and eventual search at the Kansas City, Mo., airport was
not based on a reasonable suspicion.

In that case, the undercover officer gave the court a number of reasons for
stopping Green. The court found that the fact Green was traveling alone,
carrying a small bag, wearing new and baggy clothes and failing to make eye
contact with the officer in no way indicated criminal activity. The fact
she appeared to be conducting countersurveillance is no different from a
person arriving at an airport and getting their bearings. Nor was there
anything ``inherently suspicious'' about throwing away or misplacing a used
airline ticket, the judges wrote in their opinion. The description of Green
as ``incredibly nervous'' wasn't descriptive. In all, it was ``insufficient
to demonstrate a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity,''
the judges ruled.

Stops based on behavior

Bush, the Minneapolis florist, knows he was stopped in Orlando because of
what happened at the Twin Cities airport. He said he didn't have a credit
card so he paid for the ticket in cash, which the ticket agent made a big
deal over. In addition, he said he still looks a little like a 1960s hippie.

Beaver was nailed by the profile, too. The 42yearold Salt Lake City
resident was flying into the Twin Cities airport March 21, 1996, on a
redeye flight from Las Vegas and his hair was scraggly, he said. As he got
off the plane, he noticed a number of uniformed officers and he looked at
them thinking, ``Oooh, I wonder who they are going to get?'' he recalled.

To his surprise, an officer approached him, he recalled, and said, `` `Sir,
I notice you have been looking at us, you looked at us five times.' ''
Beaver said they asked him to come with him to an interview room.

Feeling he had no choice, Beaver said he followed, emptied his pockets when
they told him to, and allowed them to look inside his briefcase, which
contained tickets to the regionals of the NCAA men's basketball tournament
which he was going to sell. On him was a small film canister, and inside
it, police found half a gram of marijuana. The officers gave him a ticket
and sent him on his way, Beaver said.

``Is it a crime to look at somebody?'' Beaver asked during an interview.
``I never did pay my ticket because I didn't like the way they abused me. I
made a vow never to go back there. That is no way to treat a guest.''

Neither Lt. Hale nor the DEA's Doman have any concerns about using the
profiles. Hale pointed out that his officers look for behaviors that the
courts have ruled can be considered suspicious. Doman said the criteria are
not so vague as critics argue and ``by and large, they are quite reliable.''

Paul Murphy, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney's office,
who has prosecuted drug cases from the airport, said the Supreme Court has
ruled that police may stop people in public places, even if they have no
reasonable suspicion.

``Consensual encounters are not seizures, and they don't implicate the
Fourth Amendment,'' he said. ``They are not profiles, they are police
looking at conduct of people as they arrive, talking to them and it evolves
to lies, falsehood, and that leads eventually to arrests. As long as police
comply with the law and the dictates of the Supreme Court, we are
comfortable.''

The court wrote in the 1991 case of Florida vs. Bostick: ``We have held
that the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals
at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions
and to request consent to search their luggage, so long as a reasonable
person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate. . . .
Drug interdiction efforts have led to the use of police surveillance at
airports, train stations and bus depots. Law enforcement officers stationed
at such locations routinely approach individuals, either randomly or
because they suspect in some vague way that the individual may be engaged
in criminal activity and ask them potentially incriminating questions.''

DEA rejects abuse potential

The federal government apparently has not reviewed whether the random
airport stops are effective. And because access to records is severely
restricted, citizens or scholars can not judge whether random stops are
slowing the flow of drugs.

That's because a request to obtain all the reports from stops by the DEA
through the Freedom of Information Act was rejected based on exemptions for
personal privacy. According to a rejection letter the Pioneer Press
received, anyone requesting that information would have to provide evidence
that the person stopped was dead or was signing a waiver to allow the
information to be released.

As a result, only cases where a person is stopped, found with drugs and
charged in court are made public, making it difficult to find out how many
innocent travelers are stopped.

Doman rejected the idea that secrecy could lead to abuses of the system by
the DEA, or could allow a program that isn't working to continue.

``I know there is not any abuse in the system because I've seen it,'' Doman
said. ``Someone may think that because they haven't seen it, there is, but
it certainly is not true. If it were not worthwhile, not effective, you
wouldn't see us and other agencies getting involved in it.''