Ensure Equality In Traffic Stops

You are an African American male, driving home from the office, your son in the car with you. You notice out of the rear-view mirror that a certain car has been following you for quite some distance. You know the car, because it belongs to an Inland Northwest law enforcement officer. You arrive at your destination and pull into the carport. The other car pulls into your driveway with blue lights blazing. The first words out of the officer’s mouth are courteous, but somewhat strange to you. He asks, “Is this where you live?”

It takes a second or two to comprehend the question, and you answer in the affirmative. With blue lights still going, you must now verify you are telling the truth. You show some ID, and the tension is rather thick though you’ve not broken any laws - no speeding, no bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic, no running of red lights. You didn’t steal, rob, hurt, harm and/or injure anyone or anything.

So what is going on? Is this “racial profiling”? Is the African American male being stopped for “driving while black”? Though Inland Northwest law enforcement officials say they don’t make traffic stops based on racial profiles, experiences similar to the one just described are common among African American males.

There may be a glimmer of hope that this will not always be the case here or in the rest of the country. This month, Attorney General Janet Reno called on the nation’s police and other law enforcement officials to deal with complaints about racial profiling.

She wants to convene a conference of law enforcement officials, community and civil rights leaders and others to study the issue in depth.

In addition, the Oregon State Police, leaders of 23 Portland-area police agencies and police union officials signed a resolution stating they will not tolerate actions by their departments, agencies and personnel based on a person’s race.

This may be the first time that police executives and union officials together have come up with this kind of resolution.

Some in Oregon have already dismissed the resolution as “just politics,” but this effort in Oregon is a positive first step.

It’s important to take Oregon’s lead and get a similar dialogue going in Washington and Idaho law enforcement departments.

Minority motorists in the Inland Northwest who suspect they’ve been stopped simply because of their race, report feeling humiliation, anger and mistrust.

Law enforcement is a difficult job these days and officers need many different kinds of tools to do their jobs well. But racial profiling is not a valuable tool. It’s often inaccurate, unfair and it can target good citizens.

Let’s hope Reno’s action and Oregon’s resolution start a nationwide trend to equality on our streets.