• Originally published in The Montgomery Advertiser March 25, 2005 Copyright 2005 The Montgomery Advertiser

By Jannell McGrew Montgomery Advertiser, jmcgrew@gannett.com

Alabama minorities, particularly blacks, are more than five times more likely than whites to say they've been stopped by a police officer because of the color of their skin. So says a recent poll released this week by the Center for Governmental Services at Auburn University.

According to the Ask Alabama statewide public opinion survey, more than half (54 percent) of all respondents said racial profiling by local law enforcement officers occurs regularly. The poll of 629 Alabamians also showed that 33 percent of minority respondents believe the practice is widespread, compared with 14 percent for nonminorities. Blacks represented 22 percent of those surveyed.

"Law enforcement agencies have to be constantly aware that young males or young African Americans are looking at their actions through the prism of racial profiling," said Jim Seroka, director of the Center for Governmental Services. The center's most recent survey results go beyond race.

According to the report, minorities were four times more likely to report having been stopped by a police officer because of their attire and three times more likely to report being stopped because of their age. The survey comes just weeks after state Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, asking U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate the Alabama Department of Public Safety, all state troopers and other city and county law enforcement agencies across the state for racial profiling. The results of the AU poll did not surprise the lawmaker.

"Racial profiling in the state of Alabama by certain law enforcement people is worse than what the polls would show," said Holmes, also head of the civil rights section of the state Legislative Black Caucus. "This doesn't include all law enforcement in the state of Alabama because we have some fine law enforcement people who do a good job, but you have some law enforcement people in the state that are rotten to the core."

Holmes pointed to an incident during which he said a white Alabama state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a black male driver. However, Holmes said the officer noted on the traffic ticket that the male driver was white. Holmes believes the officer deliberately falsified the driver's race in the report. The Alabama Department of Public Safety has since investigated the matter and concluded there was no wrongdoing on the part of the officer, said Col. Mike Coppage, DPS director. The officer in question has since received training and has been counseled to "make sure information on his citations is accurate," Coppage said. "It was an honest mistake. There was no intention to mask the demographic data or to skew anything."

In addition, DPS directed all troop commanders to reiterate to their personnel "the importance of accurately entering all information on a traffic ticket, whether it's race, date of birth, sex any of the information that's required for a citation," Coppage said. As of March 1, there were 332 state troopers assigned to the department's highway patrol division, of whom 242 are white and 90 are black. AU's latest Ask Alabama poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent, also revealed that not all Alabamians oppose racial profiling.

While 60 percent of those surveyed said they disapproved of the practice, 9 percent "strongly approved" of racial profiling. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they approved. Charles Steele, national president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the civil rights group has launched a program to develop several "conflict resolution centers" to work with law enforcement and serve as sites where residents can report such instances of racial profiling. "We still have those discriminatory practices in our system," Steele said Thursday. "That's why we need conflict resolution centers." Centers in Birmingham and Montgomery are expected to be up and running by the end of the year, he said.

Coppage said DPS has received two complaints of racial profiling since the first of the year. In one incident, the department found no wrongdoing. In the other, there was insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the allegation. In cases where allegations are substantiated, disciplinary action ranges from counseling and training to job termination, Coppage said.

There are more than 450 sworn police officers in the city of Montgomery. Since January, there have been no reports of racial profiling filed with the Montgomery Police Department, said Sgt. Mark Drinkard, an MPD spokesman. Like the state troopers, local police officials say they will not tolerate racial profiling. "We do not have a specific policy that relates directly to racial profiling," Drinkard said. "In the Montgomery Police Academy, they are taught vehicle stops. We have a code of ethics that stresses fairness through respecting the constitutional rights of all men."