Issue date: 2/12/04 Section: News

By Andrew Burleson

A report released last week indicated that local law enforcement agencies are more likely to pull over and search minorities.

Local law enforcement officials said the report should be cause for some concern, but falls short of proving that profiling exists.

The report, "Racial Profiling: Texas Traffic Stops and Searches," was prepared at the University of Texas by the Stewart Research Group on behalf of The Texas Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the NAACP of Texas and Texas League of Latin American Citizens.

The research group collected data from 413 police and sheriff's departments. The data was based on figures law agencies are required to submit to city officials.

Statewide, the study said that blacks are 1.6 times more likely to be searched and Hispanics are 1.4 timesmore likely to be searched.

In Bryan and College Station, the numbers are considerably higher.

In Bryan, a Hispanic or black driver is more than three times as likely to be searched than a white driver. Similarly, a black driver in College Station is 2.1 times more likely to be searched, while a Hispanic driver is 2.3 times as likely to be searched than a white driver.

"The statistics and data are accurate, but data can be construed in many ways," said Walt Melnyk, public information officer for the Bryan Police Department. "I am not saying it is inaccurate but that it just isn't complete."

Law agencies across the state have criticized the report for similar reasons.

In 2002, College Station police officers pulled over more than 14,000 white drivers and searched less than 300. More than 1,000 blacks were pulled over while less than 50 were searched. Only 34 Hispanics were searched out of the more than 1,000 pulled over.

In 2002, Bryan police officers searched less than 400 of the more than 1,500 black motorists pulled over and less than 300 of the 2,000
Hispanics pulled over. More than 5,000 white drivers were pulled over in Bryan and less than 300 of them were searched.

"These are definitely trends that authorities can't ignore," said Jerry Ann Henry, a junior animal science major. "I don't think they need to be targeting certain groups."

There are many scenarios that just are not taken into account, Melnyk said.

"I think racial profiling is very real in that it does happen," said sophomore political science major Ronethea Williams. "No matter how many ways people can try to deny the numbers, they are factual."

According to the report, searches and search rates play a large role in the debate on racial profiling, but collecting and reporting only the total of searches by race can hide certain racial disparities and unnecessarily inflate other differences.

"From my standpoint, I have not been a victim of racial profiling from a police officer, but it has happened to me in other areas of life," Williams said. "We should not just totally ignore the signs."

Click here to see the full racial profiling report from Texas LULAC.

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