Racial Profiling


Testimony from Amnesty International USA's hearings on Racial Profiling


Victims Accounts of Racial Profiling While Driving


THE CASE OF MILTON REYNOLDS

AIUSA has received multiple reports indicating that “Driving While Black or Brown” continues to be used as a basis for criminal suspicion. Consider the case of Milton Reynolds, an African-American schoolteacher.

Mr. Reynolds says he is routinely pulled over in his neighborhood in San Carlos, California, where apparently only five other African-American families live. He describes an incident in which he was stopped in his own driveway.When he inquired why he had been stopped, the officer gave what appeared to be “a fabricated answer” and gave him a citation. Mr. Reynolds describes what happened after he informed the officer that he would challenge the matter in court,

I said, see you in court... And so then in the ... several weeks that ensued between that time and the court date, I had law enforcement officers park in front of my house, I had lights into my apartment. My neighbors had begun to ask me, “What’s going on? Why are the cops there?”
The court dismissed the case against him. More recently, Mr. Reynolds was pulled over by undercover narcotics agents. He began to have a conversation with the officers about whether they had pulled him over because of his race. He recounts the officers’ reply, “We do, in fact, profile here around drugs. How do you expect ... [us to] do our jobs?”
THE CASE OF LEONARD MITCHEL

AIUSA is concerned that following a stop that is even partially based on race, individuals are more likely to be physically abused, verbally abused, and otherwise mistreated. The testimony of Leonard Mitchel, an African-American man, at our hearing in Dallas illustrates such an instance.

Mr. Mitchel was pulled over by police on his way to work.When asked for his driver’s license,Mr. Mitchel inquired as to why he was pulled over. Upon receiving no response from the officers, Mr. Mitchel protested about being asked to hand over his I.D. After the police threatened to spray him with mace, he relinquished his driver’s license. They immediately arrested him for an outstanding seatbelt violation. The police placed Mr. Mitchel, a 500-pound man, in two sets of handcuffs and ordered him to get into the backseat of the police car. He was charged with resisting arrest because he claimed he would not fit due to his weight. After calling for backup and attempting to physically force Mr. Mitchel into the backseat, the officers finally placed him in the front seat. He describes his experience,

"They holler at the car, n— [N word] get your a— [obscenity] in the car... So they came out ... threw me on the hood, said, you’re going to get in this back seat. I said, sir, I don’t care about going to jail ... but I can’t fit in the back seat..."
Mr. Mitchel spent two days in jail and was told he was being charged with resisting arrest and failure to provide identification.
THE CASE OF DONATO GARCIA

Racial profiling can occur not only while driving, but also while one is merely sitting in a car. Consider the case of Donato Garcia, a Latino man from our hearings in Dallas.

According to Mr. Garcia, he was targeted as he and his six-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter waited in the car for his wife. He was approached by a police officer who requested his identification.When he questioned the need to show his I.D., the officer became angry, cursed at him, and threatened to spray him with pepper spray. Mr. Garcia attempted to comply with the officer’s orders, but as he reached for his wallet, the officer sprayed him with mace, dragged him from his truck, struck him, and then arrested him. He describes the experience as traumatizing for both himself and his children, who watched in fear from the truck as the abuse took place. The long-term effects of the trauma still linger for his children. Mr. Garcia says,

"[T]here was an incident [where the police came to the house] ... but when the police arrived it notably affected my daughter who burst into tears ... [it is] something that continues to happen and it continues to affect me today..."
Furthermore, witnessing their father’s harassment has caused his children to lack trust in law enforcement officials. According to Mr. Garcia,
"That’s not right, in part because my children who should know that they can go to the police ... do not feel that way now... [T]his is something I still agonize over and ... still feel today."
Following this incident, criminal charges were brought against Mr. Garcia for assaulting a police officer. A jury took only eleven minutes to acquit him of the charges.
THE CASE OF LOUIS GRAY
In addition to physical appearance, tribal tags displayed on the vehicles of many Native Americans have allegedly been used by police officers in Tulsa to target them for traffic stops. Louis Gray, editor of the Native American Times addressed this problem. Mr. Gray was routinely pulled over when his car displayed a tribal tag. Since he removed the tag, he has not been pulled over. He says that he has received many reports about others in his and neighboring communities being subjected to racial profiling,
" From my position, the threat and humiliation of racial profiling appears to be an everyday experience for the Oklahoma Indian... . Life for Native Americans is built on institutionalized racism."
Testimony from the Tulsa hearings also reported the use of roadblocks to profile attendees of the Boley rodeo, an annual event held on Memorial Day in one of Oklahoma’s historic African-American communities. Witnesses testified that after meetings between the NAACP and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, officers ceased setting up checkpoints in the corporate areas surrounding the rodeo, but continued to use them on state highways and roads leading to the event location. Michael Camfield, a white man and an attorney with the ACLU of Oklahoma, attended the Boley rodeo to conduct research on the situation. He testified about his experience. Mr. Camfield describes what he observed upon returning from the Boley rodeo on local state highways,
" At the junction of Highway 48 and Highway 62, I observed at least seven Highway Patrol cars operating a checkpoint in this location a few miles from Boley. I found it curious, to say the least, that I was waved through the checkpoint without so much as a look at my license or insurance verification, while African-American drivers were obviously being stopped."
THE CASE OF ‘MOHAMMED’

In Chicago we heard from Ammol Chaddha who testified on behalf of his friend, “Mohammed,” a Pakistani man, who was fearful of coming forth himself. His testimony illustrates recent attempts by the federal government to require local police to enforce immigration laws.

Mohammed has been a taxi driver in the city of Chicago since the early 1990’s. Because his work permit had been granted, Mohammed failed to follow up on his pending asylum application. In August of 2002, while visiting a friend in Bensenville, Illinois, he parked his car on the side of the street that was marked for street cleaning that day. Mohammed went outside a few minutes after the designated street cleaning time and saw a police officer writing him a parking ticket. Upon handing him the ticket, the officer got in his car and drove away. Before reaching the end of the street however, the officer put his car in reverse and drove back to Mohammed. According to Mr. Chaddha,

" He started asking him, “Where were you born? Where are you from? When did you come here? How did you come here?” And Mohammed answered all the questions truthfully. "
At that point the officer called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Mohammed was first taken to the police station and then transferred to two different immigration detention facilities. He spent three months in detention before being allowed to post bail. Mr. Chaddha says,
"Since 9/11, the South Asian community has been gripped in fear because of these policies. And just like the African Americans and Latinos that have been racially profiled by law enforcement, since 9/11 our community has been racially profiled against as well."