From: Flores, Valerie
To: Daza, Laarni
Subject: FW: Comment on RIPA to Public Safety Committee 1.19.22 Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2022 4:05:59 PM
Please post online.
From: KristinOckershauser < >
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2022 3:52 PM
To: Flores, Valerie <[email protected]>
Cc: Kurtz, Cynthia <[email protected]>; Moody, Cheryl <[email protected]>; Bagneris, Michele <[email protected]>; Fowler, Amanda <[email protected]>
Subject: Comment on RIPA to Public Safety Committee 1.19.22
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January 19, 2022
PASADENA PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE
Mayor Victor Gordo [email protected]
Council Member Tyron Hampton [email protected] Council Member John K. Kennedy [email protected] Council Member Steve Madison [email protected] City of Pasadena , CA
VIA EMAIL
Dear Mayor and Council Members:
RACIAL PROFILING AND IDENTITY ACT, 2015/RIPA
As Pasadena starts the year-long survey of pedestrian and traffic police officers re possible racial and identity profiling, the Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police (CICOPP) wishes to remind us all of the history of racial profiling in Pasadena, in hopes this will be the end of it.
We remember that Pasadena has conducted two citywide surveys, in 2005 and 2015, on police- community relations following controversial police killings of Black men.
The 2016 survey report
“Community Perceptions of Policing in Pasadena” , or The Graziano Report, reported forty-seven percent of those polled said they believe local police officers treat whites and the wealthy better than minorities and the poor.
The Pasadena Weekly reported that “African Americans by far had the most negative perceptions of local
police. Seventy percent of those polled said they believed the police engaged in racial profiling, sixty percent of Black respondents said they believed police stopped people for no good reason, 53 percent found verbal and physical abuse to be a problem, and 37 percent said they found
offensive language to be an issue during encounters with the police.
Only 29 percent of white residents found racial profiling to be a problem. Thirty-nine percent of all respondents ranked racial profiling as their biggest concern in interactions with the police….” (http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/policing_by_the_numbers/16145/)
In 2019 Pasadena attorney John Burton, using the Police Department’s own figures, showed clear racial profiling by Pasadena PD: “According to Burton’s data, 43 Hispanic and 31 African-American motorists were told to get out of their cars during traffic stops in 2016, 2017 and the first half of 2018, while information about them was recorded by officers on field interview cards. Two white motorists were removed from their vehicles and subjected to field interviews during that time period. Fifteen of the people told to get out of their cars and sit on a curb while their vehicles were searched were arrested.
….According to Burton, “These data show that, with two exceptions, only black or Hispanic motorists were pulled over, and they almost never received a traffic citation, but were frequently subjected to the disgusting practice of ‘curbing’” or forcing people o of their cars and having them sit on curbs while their vehicles are searched, Burton said in an online post. “It is important to note that these traffic stops were based on race, and not on any criminal activity other than alleged traffic infractions.” [emphasis added] (https://www.pasadenaweekly.com/2019/08/15/police-expert-supports-racial-profiling-claim- over-violent-traffic-stop/ )
In the 2022 Annual Report, the RIPA Board’s primary focus is to understand data on stops for traffic violations that may form the basis of a pretext top in which an officer stops a person ostensibly for a traffic violation or minor infraction but with the actual intention of using the stop to investigate based on an officer’s hunch, rather than on reasonable suspicionor probable cause. The Board goes on to call on policy makers and leader to consider ways to eliminate pretext stps and thereby reduce any potential for harm stemming from such stops. (opcit. p. 13)
We hope this year’s RIPA survey of Pasadena police will bring new data to help identify whether policing practices continue to be influenced by racial profiling and can be stopped.
Sincerely,
Kris Ockershauser
CICOPP
CC: Interim City Manager Cynthia Kurtz [email protected] Interim Police Chief Cheryl Moody [email protected] City Attorney Michele Bagneris [email protected] Community Police Oversight Commission, Attn: Amanda Fowler [email protected]