Thread: TX-Irving diversity panel criticizes city's handling of mino

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Irving diversity panel criticizes city's handling of minority issues

10:29 PM CDT on Friday, September 25, 2009
By BRANDON FORMBY
bformby@dallasnews.com

Irving's all-white City Council and some of the minority community members it chose for an advisory committee voiced markedly different reactions this week to a study that said it found evidence that Irving police racially profile Hispanics.

Council members and Police Chief Larry Boyd expressed frustration with, anger about and indifference to the California law school's report. They questioned researchers' motives, criticized the study's methods and condemned media for quickly reporting its release.

But minority leaders on the mayor's human relations advisory committee weren't as quick to dismiss the study's data and suggested that the city's elected leaders pander to the corporate community but pay lip service to the minority groups that make up the majority of Irving's population.

"Do they really understand what diversity is?" committee member Rachel Torrez Moon said at a meeting of the group on Tuesday. "I really want to see this committee put something out there for the mayor and the council that would be blatant.

"We've been talking and talking. Let's do something."

Researchers at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity released the study of 23 months' worth of Irving arrest and jail data last week. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas obtained the data through a December 2007 open-records request.

The study said Irving police racially profiled Hispanics to put them through an immigration deportation program. It also said that police probably referred lawful residents to immigration authorities as part of Irving's nationally known Criminal Alien Program, which checks the citizenship status of city jail inmates.

Boyd told council members this week that researchers erred in the way they counted Hispanics and factored in crimes where police have discretion over whether to make an arrest. One of the authors of the study disputed those claims and stood by the report.

Council members panned the study and said the institute's work was biased. The institute that performed the study is part of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. It uses university and private funding to develop research aimed at informing advocacy groups, legislators and the public.

Mayor Herbert Gears said all that matters is that council members are satisfied with Boyd's dispute of the study.

"It's obvious from the chief's presentation that we are," Gears said.

But human relations committee members raised concerns about how established city leaders handle minority issues.

"We cannot leave it to the police department to investigate itself," said committee member Colvin Gibson, who is black and said that he and his wife have been racially profiled by Irving police.

The committee comprises about two dozen community, business and education leaders of various races and ethnicities. It was created in 2007 to advise the mayor on diversity issues.

In 1980, Irving was 93.2 percent white. But now Hispanics are the largest ethnic or racial group, at 40.6 percent. Blacks make up about 11.8 percent, and Asians are about 10.6 percent.

Some committee members complained Tuesday that the police department's racial and ethnic makeup doesn't match that of the city. Of the department's 343 sworn officers, 29 of them, or 8.5 percent, are Hispanic. About 82 percent of the force is white.

"You have a police department that's largely comprised of people that don't look like the folks in the community," Gibson said.

Committee members said they want to meet with Gears – but not Boyd – after they have gathered more information on what kind of cultural training officers must go through. They also suggested changing the Criminal Alien Program so people charged solely with misdemeanors are no longer included in ICE sweeps of the jail.

Gears, meanwhile, criticized the committee for making comments about the study before giving Boyd a chance to present his interpretation. He said the council has ensured low crime and tax rates, as well as capital and infrastructure projects to increase the quality of life for residents. And he scoffed at the idea that the council doesn't listen to the perspectives of minority residents.

"We're taking care of the citizens, and I don't agree with anybody that would say otherwise," he said.



http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 6e9c7.html

The uncontrolled path to diversity is killing this country!! These whiners in Irving need to shut their mouth and get on with the business of taking care of their American citizens. Notice I didn't say Hispanic Americans or German Americans or Chinese Americans....just Americans!

An Observation


It's funny, that so many people, think that if you are White you are not Hispanic.

A Liberal trash report. Look at who is involved in this report: Berkeley, Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity, ACLU... LIBERAL, LIBERAL, LIBERAL... FABRICATE, EXAGGERATE, AND LIE...

But now Hispanics are the largest ethnic or racial group, at 40.6 percent. Blacks make up about 11.8 percent, and Asians are about 10.6 percent.

These numbers do not reflect how many are citizens and how many are IAs.
That is a DISGRACE!