Report: Police stop blacks more often than whites

Black residents in the Missouri locales of Cape Girardeau, Charleston and Sikeston are stopped in their vehicles by police at a higher rate than those communities' white residents, according to data released by the Missouri Attorney General's Office.

Those three cities have sizable black populations. Cape Girardeau's population is 10.7% black; Sikeston, 22.8%; and Charleston, 48%.

In Jackson, black residents made up less than 2% of the population, according to the 2010 Census. But the data suggests blacks who live in Jackson are stopped by police at a higher rate than white residents when compared to census demographics.

The data is contained in the state agency's recently released, 2018 annual report on vehicle stops made by 596 law enforcement agencies in Missouri.

The report details a jurisdiction's disparity index, which relates vehicle stops by race to each racial/ethnic group's proportion of the driving-age population, 16 and older, in that jurisdiction as of the 2010 Census.

Statewide, a black motorist was 1.9 times more likely than a white motorist to be stopped when compared to population rates.

The rate was even higher in Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Jackson.

In Charleston, however, resident and nonresident whites combined were 1.5 times more likely to be stopped than black motorists, according to the data.

The report also looked at other criteria, including searches and arrests.

Police in past years have said the disparity index fails to take into account some stopped motorists are not residents, but just passing through the area, skewing the percentages of minority populations.

In an effort to address that issue, the latest statewide report includes a second disparity index that measures stops made by police of residents in their jurisdiction.

Pulled over

The data shows in Cape Girardeau, Charleston and Sikeston, black residents are more likely be stopped by police than nonresident blacks.

In Jackson, on the other hand, black residents are less likely to be stopped by police than nonresident blacks, the report shows.

Area police officials insisted they don't stop motorists based on skin color, but Ron North, former president of the local NAACP, said blacks are more likely to be stopped even when they did nothing wrong.

"Black people often feel that cops are here to police us," said North.

While more whites than blacks are stopped by those police departments, the report takes into account these communities have majority white populations. However, Charleston's black population was listed just slightly less than its white population.

According to the report, black residents in Cape Girardeau are stopped at a rate more than four times higher than the community's white residents, per the baseline demographic data. By comparison, all black motorists, resident and nonresident, are 2.7 times more likely to be stopped by Cape Girardeau police officers than white motorists, the report indicated.

Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Joey Hann said there is a good reason why black residents are more likely to be stopped than nonresident blacks.

"A major contributing factor for this statistic is that a high volume of our traffic stops are conducted not as a result of a traffic violation, but in response to a criminal investigation," he said Monday.

Officers often stop a driver they know who possesses a revoked driver's license or is wanted on a criminal warrant, Hann said. "Our officers excel at locating vehicles that are identified as being used in commission of a crime," he said.

Victims and police often are familiar with the suspects, according to Hann.

Body cameras

Hann said Cape Girardeau police officers now wear body cameras. "Since Aug. 29, over 4,000 hours of body camera footage has been recorded and every complaint we have received regarding racial discrimination against an officer has been reviewed and found completely unfounded," he said.

Now that the officers have body cameras, which automatically activate when the sirens or lights on a patrol car are turned on, the department has received fewer complaints, Hann said.

Jackson police officers also wear body cameras. Officers "can't edit or delete" footage, said the department's Lt. Alex Broch.

In Jackson, black residents are more than twice as likely as white residents to be pulled over. Black motorists as a whole are more than three times as likely to be stopped as white motorists, the data show.

Some motorists are stopped more than once. "We do pull the same person over quite a bit," Broch said.

Jackson officers each year receive one hour of training designed to avoid racial profiling, he said.

In Charleston, the data shows that whites were more likely to be stopped than blacks. But in terms of residents, blacks were slightly more likely to be pulled over than whites.

Charleston Public Safety director Robert Hearnes said he has yet to review this year's vehicle stops report. He said his focus has been on remodeling of the police station and the department temporarily operating out of the town's "old armory."

In Sikeston, black residents were more than three times as likely to be stopped as white residents. For blacks as a whole, they were more than twice as likely to be pulled over than whites, the data shows.

Sikeston Public Safety director Mike Williams and assistant chief J. McMillen did not return repeated voice and email messages left by the Southeast Missourian seeking comment on the department's vehicle stops.

North, the NAACP member, said he is not surprised by the data. Too often police, without any evidence, look at black motorists as "criminals," he said.

North, a former Arizona corrections officer, said he been stopped several times by police in various parts of the nation even though "I have never committed a crime."

Police departments must first recognize the problem before it can be addressed, he said.

Do you like stories about government and courts? Keep up with the latest news by signing up for our daily morning headline email. Go to semissourian.com/newsletters to find out more.

---

By the numbers: Traffic stops

2018 Vehicle Stops

83.3 %

Cape Girardeau's population that is white

10.7%

Cape Girardeau's population that is black

69.9%

Cape Girardeau traffic stops of white motorists

25%

Cape Girardeau traffic stops of black motorists

Source: Missouri Attorney General's Office