REILLY STARTS PUSH TO END PROFILING IN POLICE STOPS

In an effort to eliminate racial profiling of drivers, Boston and
Lowell police officials have agreed to work with state law enforcement
authorities to track all traffic stops, and not just those that result
in citations or written warnings, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly
announced yesterday.

It is the first effort on the part of state and municipal authorities
in Massachusetts to review and analyze all traffic interactions
between police officers and motorists in the state's largest cities,
and it will reveal who is being stopped and why, Reilly said.

The US Supreme Court has held that to justify a stop, police must show
they had "reasonable, articulable suspicion" to pull the car over.
However, studies in Massachusetts and elsewhere have found that blacks
are more likely than whites to not only be stopped but also given a
ticket rather than a written warning.

This week, state public safety officials plan to unveil a study,
conducted jointly with Northeastern University, that looks at the race
of motorists pulled over in all Massachusetts communities -- but only
those who received a ticket or written warning.

Reilly said the new cooperative effort between Boston and Lowell will
be more significant because it will examine the reasons for all
vehicle stops, not only those for traffic violations.

"We've taken it a step further; we're not just going to look at
citations," Reilly told about 2,000 people who gathered at the
Sheraton Boston Hotel to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"We're going to look at why was the car stopped, and was race any part
of that decision to stop that car," Reilly said. "In the end, we are
going to do everything within our power to eliminate the practice of
'driving while black.' After all, as Dr. King told us, the time is
always right to do what is right."

On Friday, Acting Boston Police Commissioner James M. Hussey announced
that his officers now will be strongly encouraged to issue tickets
when pulling over motorists, which he said would reduce the potential
for some segments of the driving population to be ticketed while
others are let go with a verbal warning.

The measure was one of several that Boston police have taken in the
past year since a Globe examination of traffic tickets showed that
Boston officers were more likely to give written warnings to whites
for the same traffic violations for which they issued tickets to
blacks and Hispanics.

The state Registry of Motor Vehicles data scrutinized by the Globe,
for April and May of 2001, showed that Boston police gave written
warnings for speeding to white drivers 57 percent of the time, but
only 47 percent of the time to minorities. The rest of those stopped
received speeding tickets. In Lowell, a city of roughly 105,000, the
data showed that minorities and whites both received tickets 91
percent of the time.

"We felt that it would be in the city's best interests for us to look
at this issue and take it on head-on," Hussey said in an interview
after Reilly's remarks. "We're willing to participate and collect data
because we think that will be helpful to move forward on the issue in
the city of Boston, because we have a commitment to our community to
talk about this issue and to move forward on this issue."

Edward F. Davis, superintendent of the Lowell Police Department, said
by month's end his agency will be able to track all traffic stops by
logging information into the department's computer system as it comes
in.

Currently, Davis said, Lowell officials have a difficult time
distinguishing traffic stops made by patrol officers who witness
moving violations from stops made by detectives or narcotics officers,
who usually stop drivers for probable cause unrelated to motor vehicle
violations. The new tracking method will remedy that problem, he said.
It is not known if Boston can separate the data.

Davis, along with Hussey considered a top candidate for permanent
commissioner of the Boston Police Department, said he has no idea if
his officers routinely let motorists go with a verbal warning, and
what percentage such stops make up of the total. "It's difficult to be
precise," Davis said.

Reilly's announcement yesterday drew applause and praise from the
audience. Several black people in the group said they had been stopped
for no apparent reason while behind the wheel.

Eric Hill, an African-American from Dorchester and a US Army
lieutenant who is due to ship out to Iraq on Saturday, said he has
been pulled over without having committed a traffic violation a number
of times, most recently on a trip through New Jersey.

"We're here to celebrate the ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King, and
racial profiling goes against what Dr. King stood for," Hill said.

While many in attendance yesterday backed Reilly's initiative, several
police chiefs in smaller Bay State communities have resisted pressure
to track all traffic stops. They said that it is an unnecessary burden
of paperwork and that monitoring those stops that result in tickets or
written warnings is adequate.

Boston, Lowell, and other larger communities have been meeting
separately to hash out new strategies to counteract community
perceptions that minorities are being treated differently -- and worse
- -- than their white neighbors.

Under a new state law that seeks to eliminate racial profiling, Reilly
and state public safety officials may require such tracking in towns
where police ticket minorities disproportionately.

The study being released this week, then, could ultimately result in
several more towns joining Boston and Lowell, Reilly said.