Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com
Black pedestrians stopped three times more often

05/16/2005

Associated Press


Police officers stopped black pedestrians last year three times more often than Hispanics or whites in San Antonio.

Once stopped, black and Hispanic pedestrians were searched close to half the time, yet police found contraband 22 percent of the time.

The findings come from an examination of police records by the San Antonio Express-News. The statistics, collected by the San Antonio Police Department in compliance with state law, covered 216,707 officer-initiated contacts in 2004.

Critics said the numbers show officers are overzealous when choosing whom to search. Others said the searches were justified because contraband was found more often on minorities than whites.

Without an exhaustive, costly analysis, the raw data is open to interpretation, Police Chief Albert Ortiz said.

The analysis showed black and Hispanic pedestrians were at least twice as likely to be searched as whites. However, officers found contraband at about the same rates, an indication that the searches were well-founded.

In a report to the City Council, Ortiz wrote that more patrols in high-minority population areas means more minority stops.

With pedestrian stops, the issue of racial profiling is more contentious. Unlike with traffic stops, where drivers' races often are obscured by tinted windows, officers know the race of pedestrians they stop.
"It gives rise to some concern," said one racial profiling expert, Alejandro del Carmen, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Given the high stop rate for black pedestrians, del Carmen said he would question the wisdom of how police use their discretion.
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