Testimony from Amnesty International USA's hearings on Racial Profiling

Victims Accounts of Racial Profiling While At Home

THE TESTIMONY OF FLORENTINA RENDO AND LYDIA TAYLOR

Individuals, families, and communities can become targets of racial profiling even when they stay home. This type of profiling can range from law enforcement officials engaging in apparently speculative raids of public housing developments' social events to the targeting of minority immigrant communities for enforcement of restrictive zoning regulations that were specifically created in response to recent population demographic shifts. Consider the following testimony presented by Ms. Florentina Rendo and Ms. Lydia Taylor in Chicago.

Ms. Rendo, an outreach coordinator for Hope Fair Housing Center, reports that overly restrictive federal ordinances, such as ones prohibiting households from utilizing family rooms, dens, living rooms, lofts, attics, or basements as sleeping quarters, were passed after census data indicated an increase of Latinos moving into the suburbs of West Chicago. City officials have used these ordinances to disproportionately target Latino families in hopes of finding evidence of overcrowding. Latino households have reportedly been the target of repeated warrant-less surveillance and sometimes raided by city officials and police. Ms. Rendo described one such raid where an overcrowding ordinance was used to raid the home of a Latino family in the city of West Chicago the morning after Father's Day in June 2002. At 4:50 a.m., nine building inspectors and police officers awoke the entire family and their guests who had stayed over after the Father's Day celebrations. They prohibited the family and their houseguests from getting dressed or moving about and then proceeded to search the entire house to find evidence of overcrowding. The raid was reportedly a result of 16 months of harassment and surveillance. The family has since lost their home. According to Ms. Rendo,

" The police and inspectors took...pictures of the occupants' bank statements, telephone bills, the kids' grade school report cards and their birth certificates. And all of this was solely done on the basis of [a] general administrative search warrant ...which authorized only that the structure and the property be inspected to determine if the premises is in compliance with the ordinance of the city....They were ordered not to have any visitors even during the day, including their parents or any other family members, and they were prohibited from using the rear entrance."

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the city for harassment of Latino families, who comprise the majority of households subjected to home raids.39 Ms. Rendo also noted that the majority of overcrowding actions taken by the city against Latino families were found to be groundless. She also added that the number of complaints their office receives from residents in West Chicago has dramatically increased since September 11, 2001.

Ms.Taylor of the Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago described a raid on Stateway Gardens public housing development in February 2001. More than 40 police officers reportedly descended on a popular annual basketball tournament in the development's gymnasium. After the game ended, they ordered everyone to line up near the outer doors and submit to searches of their bodies and their belongings. According to Ms.Taylor, this was done without a search warrant or any identifiable evidence of a police emergency at hand. Ms.Taylor highlights two particular instances during this raid,

" Two citizens in particular I want to tell you about. One is Brenda Williams. Ms.Williams was forced to put her one-year-old daughter down on the floor ...to facilitate the inspection.... And after she submitted to the search the police proceeded to search her one-year-old daughter. Anthony Jackson was...to play in the second game, and the police began searching his gym bag and they carelessly threw his belongings on the floor ... [When] police demanded that his two young sons submit to searches, Mr. Jackson objected a lot more vigorously, of course. He was handcuffed and arrested for disorderly conduct.... It has a demoralizing effect on all of the people present."

This large-scale operation in which over 250 people were profiled resulted in a lawsuit against the city. The plaintiffs in Williams v. Brown were able to secure a $500,000 settlement. However, the city admitted no wrongdoing.

THE CASE OF LORI PENNER

AIUSA also heard from the Native-American community in Tulsa about their experiences with home raids. Ms. Lori Penner described an incident where increasing traffic stops of her and her family, reportedly due to the tribal tags displayed on their cars, finally led to a horrific raid on their home.

Ms. Penner, a member of the Cheyenne tribe of western Oklahoma, has been stopped by police many times and yet she has rarely received a traffic citation. Members of her family have also experienced these stops. Eventually, the traffic stops got more frequent and the police began to come to their home.When Ms. Penner and others who visited her home were stopped, they were asked whether they had any drugs in the house or if they were selling drugs, drinking, or partying. The situation escalated in a final raid of her home. She describes the incident,

" [M]y door was broken down. I had eight people come into my home. They pointed their guns at us. They told us to get on the floor... My six-year-old grandson was in there. ...I ...inquired, why are you doing this? No one would answer us. My fifteen-year-old daughter was jerked out of the shower naked, made to stand in front of three police officers.... No search warrant was ever shown to us.... My daughter was handcuffed.... My six-year-old grandson was made to sit there with us.We were all searched. My house was ransacked.... No drugs were found.... No one was taken to jail. The police laughed. They ridiculed us ...they cussed.... One officer told my daughter she cleaned up very nicely, she looked very good for her age. It was all because we are Indian."

THE TESTIMONY OF JESS GHANNAM: The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing political and social climate also affect Arab, Muslim, and Middle-Eastern communities in their homes. AIUSA has received several reports of families being visited at home by federal agents. At the Oakland hearings,Dr. Jess Ghannam, President of the American- Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of San Francisco, testified that people from his community no longer have faith in the American government and justice system as a result of mistreatment by government officials since September 11, 2001. He says that many of them came to the U.S. to escape persecution in their home countries. And yet, the very country in which they sought protection has not only turned its back on them, but has started to assault their civil liberties. According to Dr. Ghannam,

" [T]he breadth and depth of depression that I'm seeing in the community is staggering.We have families...who have kept their kids inside the home since September 11th, refusing to let their kids out because they're worried they're going to be harassed or picked up. That's an unacceptable way to live in this country, it's an unacceptable way to live in any country...."