By Linda Davis
Contra Costa Times
CONTRA COSTA, Calif. — Some surprising trends emerge from an eight-year-long profiling study done by the Piedmont police department and released this past week.
The study shows that white people comprise about 65 percent of those stopped, with people older than 40 having the most police encounters. That compared to 10 percent to 15 percent black and about 0.08 percent Hispanic. Asians comprised about 10 percent with other races about 4 percent.
Police stops were about evenly divided between men and women.
“The surprise to me was the age and the fact that other races were so low,” interim Chief John Hunt said.
Piedmont, a mainly white, affluent city, is surrounded by Oakland, a very diverse community. Piedmonters are often cautious of people of color in their city who they don’t know, and will call police over solicitors and strangers of color in their neighborhoods. In most cases, the person is a gardener, a nanny, a maid or a student selling magazine subscriptions.
Hunt expected the higher number of stops would be younger people, such as kids showing off in their cars with friends, but not so.
About 20 to 24 percent in the 18-to-29 age group were stopped, with about the same percentage of 30- to 39-year-olds. The driving 17-year-olds only made up about 0.07 percent of stops. Hunt surmises the over-40 age group were mostly rushing to work or to pick up a child at school.
About 79 percent of stops were for traffic violations, with 20 percent for equipment violations such as a broken taillight. Moving violations such as speeding or running a stop sign made up the highest percentage of stops for all the years.
In most cases, citations were issued, with a much lower number of warnings issued. Arrests have varied from two to 30 over the study period.
The highest percentage of stops occur in early spring through May and June. Hunt suggests more people are out driving in the better weather or during holiday breaks from school or work.
The study was begun in 2002 to track the race, age and sex of people who came in contact with Piedmont police. Hunt explained it was originally started in response to pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union to determine if people of color were being unfairly targeted by law enforcement.
“The big agencies were getting bad raps and (needed to prove) they were not doing that,” Hunt explained. “A lot of (police) agencies started doing it, but I don’t know if they continued.” Piedmont police decided to keep compiling statistics, even if they were not mandated.
“In early 2000 we got a records request from the ACLU but haven’t heard from them since,” the chief said.
The racial information collected by officers at the scene is done visually. Violators are not asked for their race. Officers fill out a card they submit to the department, which is entered into the databank.
Data for 2004 was lost, the only missing reporting year from 2002 through March of this year.
“The information was on floppy disks that got corrupted, and we could not retrieve the information,” Hunt said.
Hunt said the statistics are pretty consistent from year to year. The report has been useful to the department to track trends, watch for spikes in any category and maintain the department’s credibility.
“It reassures the public that we are an unbiased organization doing our job. We are not hiding anything. If the numbers were different, we would address them.
“I am very proud of my officers. We are an evenhanded department there to serve the public.” Gathering the racial profiles has stopped as of March.
“Even with the loss of 2004 (statistics) we have 10,000 pieces of data. That is enough,” Hunt said.
Anyone wishing to obtain the racial profiling report may visit the police department and make a public records request that would be filled within 10 days.
Copyright 2010 Contra Costa Times