Treatment of minorities harsher, officers admit

By Kelly Thornton Ruth L. McKinnie and Michael Stetz
STAFF WRITERS

August 29, 1999

A white San Diego cop who patrols mostly black neighborhoods bluntly says this about dealing with African-Americans:

"People pay us to be suspicious. Little bells go off with certain things. I'm probably more suspicious of blacks, just based on experience. There's more of a possibility of problems than with others."

As offensive as his comment must be to many law-abiding blacks, it illustrates what police are reluctant to admit: Sometimes there's a big difference between how they treat whites and the city's minorities.

It's not just white officers who acknowledge the gulf.

"There's no doubt in my mind, with persons of color, officers are more aggressive or more willing to detain or handcuff," said a black officer. "They give a white guy more chances than a person of color. Why? Because the officer's only been exposed to the negative out there."

The divide between police and blacks once again seems very wide since July 24, when two white officers fatally shot former professional football player Demetrius DuBose after a Mission Beach confrontation. Police say he resisted arrest and grabbed the officer's nunchaku, a martial-arts weapon. He was also on drugs, according to a toxicology report.

The death of DuBose, who was shot 12 times, including five times in the back, has brought a sustained protest from all parts of the African-American community, where many feel race was a factor in the outcome.

It touched a nerve among blacks who complain they're routinely stopped and questioned by police or somehow treated with greater suspicion because of their color.

The Union-Tribune interviewed more than 20 officers. Most requested that their names not be used because of the sensitivity of the DuBose case, which is still under investigation.

Collectively, their comments leave one overwhelming impression -- that confrontation is all but certain when neither side understands the other.

The DuBose case is one more example of a broader national problem of how cops and minorities view each other and interact, sometimes with bloody results.

Harassment of black drivers by state troopers in New Jersey. The fatal police shooting in Riverside of Tyisha Miller as she slept with a gun in her car. The shooting of an unarmed African immigrant and the broomstick rape of a Haitian immigrant by New York City police.

And now, the emotional matter of how police conduct themselves with people of color -- and the role of racial stereotyping -- once again have visited San Diego.

Complaints few

Fatal shootings by police here over the last 10 years have claimed a higher rate of blacks and Latinos than other groups, statistics show. Yet for its size, the 2,076-officer San Diego Police Department has had relatively few formal complaints of racism compared to other large departments.

Police average about 25 discrimination complaints annually; none was substantiated during the last four years. At the same time, San Diego police officers make about 85,000 arrests, respond to 1.5 million calls and issue 100,000 citations annually.

"We're hearing this talk (about racism in the department), but it doesn't fit with the level of complaints we actually get," said Scott Fulkerson, executive director of the Citizens Review Board on Police Practices, a 23-member watchdog group that monitors complaints about and shootings by officers.

The San Diego Police Department has been the target of 16 claims and 14 lawsuits alleging racial discrimination over the last five years, said City Attorney Casey Gwinn. None of the cases went to trial; the city paid a total of $500 to settle claims, which is the first step before filing a lawsuit against a government agency, and $68,000 to settle lawsuits. Eight suits are pending.

"Our numbers by way of comparison are very, very low," Gwinn said. "L.A. pays out millions and millions and millions of dollars involving cases of race discrimination or excessive force."

When controversial shootings occur, critics emphasize that blacks and Latinos are shot at a higher rate than whites, and police officers counter that blacks -- especially juvenile males -- are in trouble more often than whites.

Of the 119 people fatally shot by law enforcers countywide since 1989, 14 percent were black. Blacks make up 6 percent of the county's population.

Thirty-eight percent of those slain since 1989 were Latino, while they make up about 20 percent of the county's population.

By comparison, 39 percent of those shot and killed by police were white, who make up about 65 percent of the region's population.

Other figures show that a high rate of people arrested in San Diego County are black.

Blacks accounted for 17 percent of the adults arrested in the region last year, according to the state Department of Justice. That is nearly triple the percentage of blacks in the county's total population.

Similarly, 16 percent of the youths arrested were black, while 7 percent of the region's juvenile population is black.

Such statistics help shape perceptions out on the street.

Fears and prejudices

The voice of a police dispatcher was broadcasting details of a home-invasion robbery in Point Loma. The victim was raped.

A black patrol officer, cruising nearby neighborhoods in the middle of the night, was listening keenly, bracing for the suspects' descriptions.

"Three black males," the dispatcher said.

A deep sigh, and disappointment. Another reason for my colleagues to look unfavorably on blacks, thought the officer.

"Crime after crime after crime, I wait," he said. "I'm just hoping the suspect description isn't what I think it will be. 'Please don't let it be a black male.' Eight out of 10 times, I'm disappointed. I think: 'S---! Are we the only ones committing crime?'

"I can see how some officers when they see a black person, they think negative. But I know out of hundreds of thousands of black people in San Diego, only a few are the bad guys, and the few make it sound like the majority. And if I think it sounds bad, I know what others think."

Just as he fears, many are thinking the worst.

Officers of all races can become jaded by repeated exposure to inner-city violence, leaving them with stereotypes that they apply to an entire group, say police and law enforcement experts.

"The cop approaches people with his bristles up, based on his past experiences," said James J. Fyfe, professor of criminology at Temple University in Philadelphia and a former New York City police officer.

Part of the problem, experts say, is that although many departments are hiring more minorities, the nation's police ranks remain overwhelmingly filled with white men who have little experience with other races or cultures.

The San Diego Police Department is about 70 percent white, 15 percent Latino, 8 percent black, 3 percent Asian and 4 percent American Indian and others. "In a diverse community it's a real culture shock for cops," Fyfe said. "You're meeting these people under the least desirable circumstances -- they're being victimized, hurt or locked up. Most of the people he interacts with are in crisis and, if they happen to be different from him, it's very easy for the cop to stereotype."

Even some minority officers say they can become more suspicious based on a person's color.

"People we stop and talk with, no matter what color the officer, they say the only reason we're stopping them is because of the color of their skin. And sometimes it is," said one police veteran who is black.

"Sometimes I drive down the street and instinctively do a double take," he said. "And then I ask myself, had that person been any other color, would I have taken a double take?"

The black officer said he has seen some white colleagues show their prejudices and fears on the beat.

"Some officers I've seen on calls, if a person has size and color, they instantly want to confine that person because it may escalate," he said. "Sometimes I think that they want to go beyond what's really needed at that point. I think they are afraid because of color."

Yet many white officers insist they are colorblind.

"You don't see color -- you see crime," a white officer said. "When I see a congregation of whites or blacks or Hispanics, I don't see the races. I think, 'What are these guys up to?'

"We're paid to be curious. I'm not saying there are no biases or prejudices out there. But I look that way at everybody."

Officers who do become jaded on the job often keep their feelings hidden, concerned about losing their jobs or facing lawsuits. "I think it's kept within; it's not demonstrated," one white officer said.

Stereotypes, white officers said, work both ways.

"It's almost like police officers have become a stereotyped minority group," said a white officer. "They're saying, 'Police officers always do this,' and we're saying, 'Black people always do this.' "

Mixed signals

The frightening thing about stereotypes that may lead to prejudice among some police officers is the risk of deadly consequences.

"Biases exist deep down that generate fears that can cause people to more quickly go to their weapon," said Hubert Williams, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Foundation and former chief of the Baltimore Police Department.

"I think deep down inside the racial problem is fear associated with race -- that when turbulence and crisis exist, it brings these things out to the surface and causes an impulsive reaction," said Williams, who is black.

"I don't think most of this is a calculated attempt by white officers to shoot blacks. ... I do think these racial biases can influence the way a police officer behaves, and they can create an overreaction."

Some officers may not even realize their behaviors show a degree of prejudice that influences their interactions.

"A huge amount of the racism in this country is unconscious racism," said Fulkerson, of the Citizens Review Board. "People who say something offensive may not be conscious of it, but the victim certainly is. It builds up year after year and it just curdles the relationship."

Perhaps police are burdened with unrealistic expectations in an era of tremendous growth in minority populations, in which where officers are often the buffer for social problems.

"Whenever the social order is changing, like with Latinos in California, all these tensions rub on police because police are in the middle," Fyfe said. "They're supposed to be the referees of social order." Police in black neighborhoods sometimes get mixed signals from residents, Fyfe said. Some residents press for aggressive enforcement in crime-ridden communities, while others don't trust officers or want them around.

Screening for racism

Busloads of California police officers arrive daily at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Some by choice, others not. It's part of a booming trend in law enforcement: diversity training.

The officers hear testimony from a Holocaust survivor and a former hatemongering skinhead, the kind of stories so disturbing even the burly SWAT guys get damp-eyed.

At one point in the museum tour, there are two doors. One is labeled "Prejudiced" and the other "Unprejudiced." As one might expect, most people press toward the latter passageway.

But the door doesn't open.

The message is that everyone is biased.

That means hiring and maintaining ranks free from even subtly racist attitudes is a challenge.

The New York City Police Department, which patrols one of the most culturally diverse populations in the nation, pioneered the concept of diversity training for officers in the late 1960s. Devoting 20 percent of training time to social and cultural issues was unheard of back then.

Now big-city departments do it routinely, both at the academy and throughout officers' careers.

Job applicants at the San Diego Police Department and elsewhere are thoroughly investigated and interviewed. They take physical, psychological and personality tests.

One in nine applicants for a spot in the department makes it through the hiring process, which can take as long as 18 months because the screening is thorough. Detectives interview about 35 references per applicant -- ones given by the applicant and some that aren't.

Opinions vary on whether such measures weed out potential racists.

"Can we screen for racism? I would like to think we could, but to be honest, we can't be 100 percent sure," said police Lt. Shawna Selby, who oversees the department's background investigations unit.

"If someone is a true racist, they're not going to tell us. We hope to uncover that type of information in a background investigation."

Racist tendencies may appear in personality tests, which nearly every sizable department includes in the hiring process. In San Diego, about 35 percent of applicants are rejected for failing psychological evaluations.

Exhaustive background checks and in-depth interviews may shed more light, but few police departments have the money or the manpower for that, said Neil Hibler, a former longtime federal officer who is now a police psychologist in Fairfax, Va.

Some police psychologists argue that other police forces aren't as selective as they could or should be when it comes to hiring the right people to fulfill their delicate mission.

Nationally, only about 10 percent to 15 percent of police applicants wash out during screening, when the figure ought to be as high as 75 percent, said Steve Stanard, a police psychologist whose Chicago firm has advised more than 1,000 public service departments nationally in job hirings.

'Get to know each other'

Those who do make it will have a tough job bridging the ever-widening perception gap.

The division between whites and blacks in their views of police officers is well-documented. Blacks, for example, are far more likely than whites to believe that police treat certain groups unfairly, according to an annual poll of Americans included in the federal government's Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.

The poll also found that eight out of 10 blacks worry that police will stop and arrest them even though they are innocent of any crime, while roughly five out of 10 whites shared that concern.

And only three out of 10 blacks polled rated the honesty and ethical standards of police as high or very high, while six out of 10 whites gave police officers such high marks for their ethics.

Such feelings create a natural hostility.

"Sometimes we place a black-white spin on things without considering personality, without considering who we are as people," said a black officer. "We've got to take time out to get to know each other."