By Bob Young, The Seattle Times
A majority of Seattle residents, black and white, who responded to an $80,000 city survey believe Seattle police officers engage in racial profiling.
The survey, unveiled yesterday by Mayor Greg Nickels, found Seattleites overall had positive views of police, particularly from personal experience. Even two-thirds of respondents who were stopped by police reported they were satisfied with the encounter.
But many of those surveyed perceive problems with Seattle police misconduct; 42 percent believe police are verbally or physically abusive.
Perceptions are worse about racial profiling: 76 percent of black respondents believe Seattle police practice profiling, while 56 percent of Asians and 51 percent of whites who participated in the survey agree.
The findings on profiling underscore a larger issue.
“The responses of black residents were uniformly less positive than responses of other racial and ethnic groups,” according to the telephone survey of 1,607 by the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research firm based in New York.
The survey sampled roughly equal numbers of blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics.
City officials said the survey was just one step in understanding and addressing friction between police and citizens. They plan to follow up with focus groups and community meetings.
“We need qualitative data to find out why these perceptions exist, particularly in the African-American community,” said the mayor’s spokeswoman, Marianne Bichsel.
Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske blamed much of the problem on the media. “One-thousand good acts don’t make one inch in The Times and the P-I,” he said.
Kerlikowske said perceptions of misconduct were probably “based on something people heard, read or had seen” in the media, given that so many people reported positive personal experiences with police.
A group of community activists was briefed by the chief and the mayor’s staff on the survey yesterday. While praising city leaders for undertaking it, some were underwhelmed.
“My gut instinct was, ‘What else is new?’ ” said Roberto Maestas, executive director of El Centro de la Raza. “Nothing caught my attention as truly beneficial or significant. If there’s any value, it will be in what kind of follow-up, what kind of honest dialogue we can have.”
Some activists were disturbed the survey focused on perceptions of profiling rather than confirming the practice existed, which they said would do more to remedy the problem.
“I applaud the mayor and the chief for their efforts. However I, like others, believe that their premise that profiling is scientifically unknowable impacted the product, as did their focus on perception,” said Tony Orange, executive director of the Central Area Motivation Project.
Kerlikowske said the perception of profiling was just as important as the reality of it. “So much of policing is based on our relationship and trust with the community,” he said.
The chief also said perceptions of profiling, even among white people, are found in cities across the country. He noted the department is trying to increase police sensitivity to perceived profiling through training and education.
The department has a policy that prohibits consideration of race or ethnicity in law enforcement. The policy says officers must be able to articulate specific facts and circumstances that support reasonable suspicion or probable cause for investigations, traffic stops, arrests, searches and seizures.
Still, the survey found that blacks reported being questioned, frisked and arrested at twice the rate of whites.
The survey is part of Nickels’ strategy to enhance police accountability and improve community relations. Bichsel said focus groups, community meetings and discussions with the City Council would probably start early next year.
Nick Licata, chairman of the council’s public-safety committee, was encouraged Seattleites believe police were doing a good job overall.
“I found it interesting that the black community has more requests for police. So there’s an interesting tension. They want more police protections but there are concerns about how it is delivered,” Licata said.