LOCAL OFFICERS OBJECT TO NEW RACIAL PROFILING LAW

Tracking the possibility of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies might be a good idea, but a new law signed by Gov. Mel Carnahan last Monday is the wrong approach, some Cape Girardeau County lawmen say.

"This will do little to solve the problem, if one exists here," said John Jordan, Cape Girardeau County sheriff.

The law will require all police agencies to record and report the racial identity of persons who are stopped while driving. Additional new information, including the violations alleged, the circumstances of any resulting search and whether an arrest was made will also be collected.

This information must be reviewed by law enforcement agencies, who then are required to report it to the state Attorney General's office. The Attorney General's office will provide this data as an annual report to the Missouri General Assembly and the governor.

Additionally, each law enforcement agency must adopt a policy on race-based traffic stops, providing for appropriate counseling and training for officers.

Such measures may be needed in some communities, but not all, Jordan said.

"In a place like Bollinger County, you might not have a single traffic stop with a minority in a year," he said. "It's just based on the makeup of the local population."

The new law is an unfunded mandate that will drain law enforcement resources, said Cape Girardeau Police Chief Rick Hetzel.

"This problem does exist within law enforcement, but not everywhere," Hetzel said. "It's a knee-jerk reaction to a media-driven issue."

Both Jordan and Hetzel believe that the financial impact on smaller police and sheriff's departments was ignored by legislators.

A fiscal summary of the law's impact estimates a cost to state government of about $45,000 annually to collect racial and other new information. No estimate is given for the costs that might be incurred by police and sheriff's departments.

The state Highway Patrol figures $5,000 is needed to develop a new report to include race, gender and other facts.

Tabulation of racial data won't present a problem for the Highway Patrol, Lt. Tim Hull said. Troopers have been recording the additional information since last September, Hull said.

Even when a ticket is not issued, troopers record the location of a stop, the name of the driver, the reason for the stop, the race and gender of the driver, and whether or not a vehicle search was conducted. If a search for contraband is carried out, detailed information on that is reported, Hull said.

"We haven't had any problems with this here," said Hull, referring to the patrol. "We just want to make sure that we don't fall into the same position as New Jersey."

An investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General's office found that less than one percent of all vehicles stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike were searched by state troopers between 1997 and 1998. But 77.2 percent of those searches were conducted when the driver was either black or Hispanic.

When Missouri statistics are compiled, they will show the percentage stopped from each racial group in comparison to the group's overall population in the state, Hull said.

Before enacting a law, a statewide committee made up of law enforcement, community representatives and elected officials should have been formed to consider the ramifications, Hetzel said.

A suggestion had been made by the Missouri Police Chiefs Association to have racial and gender information encoded onto new drivers licenses.

"Then they could put electronic card readers in each patrol car and have the state pay for it," said Hetzel, a vice-president of the association.

State Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau voted for the racial profiling bill along with 19 of his colleagues. Only seven Missouri senators opposed it. In the House, the bill passed 130-23.

"The crime of driving while black does exist," Kinder said. "The anecdotal information is overwhelming."

No judgments are being made at this point, he said, which is a reason why he voted in favor. The law simply requires law enforcement to collect data, Kinder said.

Jordan believes that many lawmakers voted for racial profiling only out of the fear of being labeled a racist.

When black members of the General Assembly speak about their own families' harassment by a few overzealous police, the problem is hard to ignore, Kinder said.

"I don't think testimony like that can be ignored," he said.