Tough New California Law Could Help Minorities, or … Just Bury Police in Paperwork

PROFILING THE COPS--When Jesus Naranjo was stopped by the California Highway Patrol at 1 a.m. two months ago, he says he was listening to music on his Beats headphones. The officer asked Mr. Naranjo to show him what he was doing. When he reached for his music player, he says, the officer reached for his gun. 

Naranjo said he froze and the officer backed off his weapon. But that didn’t conclude the stop. He was taken out of his car, patted down, and questioned. After he told the two officers that he worked nights at a gym while going to college for business, he says the officers told him to drop and “give them 20.” 

Naranjo dropped to the pavement and began counting push-ups. By the time he reached 12, Naranjo realized the officers were walking away. They said nothing more to the 20 year-old Latino, but Naranjo could hear them laughing as they left. 

While the above encounter led to no further action by the officers, under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown Saturday, law enforcement all over the Golden State will have to document the race or “perceived ethnicity” of suspects in any such stop or arrest. The law is one of the toughest in the nation, aimed at creating, and making public, a database of information that can be analyzed for potential patterns of racial profiling. 

The legislation – more than 15 years in the making – was opposed by numerous law enforcement groups even as it was hailed as historic by civil rights activists. It comes at a time when cities across the United States are wrestling with questions on how to best protect people while not infringing on the rights of minority citizens. Advocates say that it goes further than almost any other state law, requiring documentation for any encounter between police and the public, whether pedestrian or automotive, and whether or not the encounter results in an arrest or citation.  (Read the rest.)  

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 84

Pub: Oct 16, 2015