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February 15, 2008

Report says racial profiling at Jacksonville PD nonexistent

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Mayor Robert Haberle announced at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that the Jacksonville Police Department has completed its 2007 Racial Profiling Report. According to Police Chief Reece Daniel, the report indicates that racial profiling is not a problem at JPD, and that his officers are using legal criteria, not race, as the motivation for enforcement actions.

“I’m pleased by the results of the report, but it was nothing that I didn’t expect. This is not something we just look at once a year — we look at this on almost a weekly basis — if we had any sort of racial profiling problem we would have fixed it as soon as we discovered it,” Daniel said.

Daniel reported his department did not receive a single formal racial profiling complaint during 2007.

“We haven’t received any racial profiling complaints in the past year, however, we did receive one the year before. After checking the tapes, it was determined to be unfounded, and it wasn’t even made by the person who was supposedly profiled, it was made by a friend of theirs,” he said. “The law requires that formal complaints against officers must be made in writing. However, even if someone just calls us about an officer behaving inappropriately, we will review the tapes to see what happened. This is something that we want to make sure that we have no problems with.”

Texas Racial Profiling laws require police departments to collect data pertaining to traffic stops, pedestrian stops, searches conducted and citations issued. Because JPD uses in-car video cameras on all its vehicles which are normally used for traffic or patrol duties, the department is only required to collect information on traffic stops where either an arrest is made or a citation is issued.

“The greatest benefit to come out of the racial profiling laws is the advent of the video camera. I read a study just recently that said that 99 percent of all complaints lodged against officers are resolved in favor of the officer if there is a video tape available — because there is no guess work,” Daniel said. “The officers know they are being taped, and they also know that they have a true record of what’s happening, to protect them from untrue complaints.”

The report shows that of a total 4,256 citations given, 2,364 (55.5 percent) citations were issued to white drivers, 935 (21.9 percent) were issued to black drivers and 951 (22.3 percent) were issued to Hispanic drivers in 2007. Census information from 2000 indicates that 53.5 percent of Jacksonville’s population is white, 21.5 percent is black and 23 percent is Hispanic.

“The legislature did not give us any type of guidelines or formula to use in analyzing this data. First and foremost, I think your video tapes are the best way to determine how your officers are treating people,” Daniel said.

Daniel said the racial profiling laws have their share of detractors, but he is not one of them.

“A lot of people are against these laws, but I think they are great, great tools for us to show the community what we are doing. It has been a great benefit to us as far as bringing cameras into the patrol cars and opening the lines of communication with the public,” he said.

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