NORTH STATE DRUG AGENTS ACCUSED OF TARGETING HISPANICS

A north state drug enforcement team is being accused of singling out
Hispanics and other minorities by pulling them over on Interstate 5
for no reason other than their ethnicity - a claim that could thrust
Shasta County into a heated national debate over racial profiling.

In court documents filed this week, the Shasta County Public
Defender's Office alleges that for years, deputies working as part of
the North State Initiative California Multi-Jurisdictional
Methamphetamine Enforcement Team (Cal-MMET) specifically targeted
Hispanic drivers suspected of hauling cash and drugs along I-5.

"As a result, many innocent Hispanics are being detained and having
their constitutional rights violated, including the right to travel,"
Mike Horan, the senior deputy public defender, wrote in the motion
filed in Shasta County Superior Court. "There is little doubt that
people are being targeted prior to being stopped based on their appearance..."

Sheriff's Capt. Jeff Foster, the north state's Cal-MMET leader up
until earlier this month, denied the allegations, saying drug agents
don't target suspects based on race. The drug team's statistics show
that there's no particular ethnicity being targeted, he said.

"Those accusations are exactly that, they're accusations, which are
unsubstantiated," he said today.

Horan said in the motion that he's tracked 75 arrests of suspected
drug runners stopped on Interstate 5 by CAL-MMET in recent years.
Fifty-five of them - or around 75 percent - were Hispanics, Horan said.

Horan notes that of the total number of suspects the Shasta County
Sheriff's Office arrests in a given year, usually only around 6
percent of them are Hispanic, and only about 36 percent of the
state's population is Hispanic.

Horan said that the numbers correspond with documents he's gathered
and officers' testimony. That shows it's clear that clear drug agents
are racially profiling, he said. In a statement, Horan called the
actions "discriminatory and unconstitutional."

Horan's accusations coincide with a heated national debate over
racial profiling. Arizona lawmakers last week passed a bill to crack
down on illegal immigration that has drawn protests and legal
challenges across the nation from civil rights advocates who say it
will lead to Hispanics targeted because of their ethnicity.

Horan's motion is filed on behalf of Saul Arais Guzman, a 25-year-old
Portland, Ore., man who was arrested in August on Interstate 5 on
suspicion of running drugs.

Horan said at least 10 other defendants arrested in Shasta County
have joined the motion, and the Federal Public Defender's Office in
Sacramento is planning to join as well.

The attorneys hope a judge will dismiss their clients' cases, since
racial profiling falls under the category of "selective prosecution,"
which courts have ruled unconstitutional since the 1970s.

Horan's motion contends that drug agents patrol the freeway north of
Redding targeting Hispanic drivers and their passengers who match a
profile of a suspected drug runner, usually a young Hispanic man
driving a newer, nondescript vehicle.

A deputy then follows them, until they are spotted making a minor
traffic infraction, and the deputy pulls the driver over.

Once on the side of the road, the drug agent who made the stop orders
the suspect out of the car. Within minutes, more deputies arrive with
a narcotic-sniffing dog, and the vehicle is searched, the motion alleges.

In January 2010, the Federal Public Defender also hired a private
investigator who spent 11 days on I-5 watching the drug agents at work.

The investigator watched the agents make 22 traffic stops between the
Pine Grove exit in Shasta Lake and Bridge Bay on Lake Shasta. Of
those stops, 17 were of Hispanic drivers, 13 of whom had their cars
searched. The rests of the searches were of cars driven by blacks or
that had black passengers.

The only white driver who was pulled over wasn't searched, according
to Horan's motion.

Foster said he wasn't surprised to learn the defense had hired a
private investigator.

"It tells you the case is so tight, this is the best thing they can
do is look for minor issues," he said.

Those who aren't found to be in possession of drugs or a traffic
citation are freed and issued a written warning, Horan said.

The warnings apparently are drafted by the Cal-MMET office, Horan
alleges, and there's no legal reason for them to be issued.

Horan alleges the citations, which Cal-MMET contends aren't public
documents, are used to create a database of Hispanic drivers.

"The (Cal-MMET) program is not paying three, four or five deputies,
some on overtime, and a police canine to sit on I-5 to remind
citizens of the provision and importance of traffic laws," he said.

Horan notes that in a year-long period, the three CAL-MMET drug
agents pulling over suspects on I-5 issued only four actual traffic
citations, but pulled over dozens of drivers in supposed traffic stops.

Agents are trained in accordance with national standards taught to
other regional drug task forces, Foster said.

Foster said his drug agents have nothing to hide, and the media is
welcome go on ride-alongs with the drug agents to see just what they do.

"That invitation is always open," he said.

Last year, the north state Cal-MMET officers made 65 arrests and
seized more than 70 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 461
pounds of processed marijuana, 6 pounds of pseudoephedrine, which is
used to manufacture methamphetamine, more than 120 pounds of cocaine
and a third of a pound of heroin.

The five-county enforcement team also seized more than $2.8 million
in cash and $120,163 in personal property. Of that total, at least
$1.8 million in cash was seized in three busts along I-5 near Redding.

Under federal and state asset forfeiture programs, agencies that
seize the funds can receive up to 80 percent of the cash back, which
can be used to pay for officers' salaries. But the asset forfeiture
rules mandate that the money can't be used to pay for more drug agents.

The sheriff's office had to cut funding for 45 employee positions
last summer, and the department has stepped up training on how to
spot alleged drug and loot haulers.

But Sheriff Tom Bosenko has said his office isn't aggressively trying
find asset forfeiture money to boost the department's budget.