| Bill requires officers to gather racial data Texas measure bans profiling 04/05/2001 By Christy Hoppe / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN – Police throughout Texas will have to report the race and ethnicity of the people they pull over and search under a racial profiling bill that the Senate passed Wednesday.
By a 28-2 vote, including the support of acting Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, senators approved the measure that prohibits law officers from targeting minority drivers and requires police and sheriffs' deputies to collect traffic data and report statistics annually.
"Texas has taken a giant step by this particular bill," said the bill's author, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.
Mr. West said simply outlawing the practice of racial profiling is not enough because, he said, it already is supposed to be illegal under the U.S. and Texas constitutions.
"I do not believe we can simply adopt a bill that prohibits racial profiling, including some police training, and then pat ourselves on the back and go home and claim we've done something," he said.
"Accountability is the key to prevention, but it also is the most difficult on which to find common ground," Mr. West said.
Police officials and civil rights advocates have met with Mr. West for months to hammer out the compromise bill, which won the endorsement of police chiefs, defense lawyers, black and Hispanic groups and individual departments, including Dallas and Houston.
Recently, The Dallas Morning News, which analyzed last year's traffic stops by the Department of Public Safety, found that black and Hispanic drivers are searched at twice the rate of white motorists.
The DPS data also showed that although minority drivers are more likely to be subjected to searches, they are less likely than whites to be arrested.
The case is especially true for Hispanics: one out of every 20 Hispanics pulled over is searched, compared to one out of every 50 white drivers. But while 11 percent of Hispanics are arrested for nontraffic criminal activities, 25 percent of white drivers were so charged, DPS statistics show.
DPS officials said their troopers do not use race as a basis for searches or any other law enforcement decision.
Mr. West said his bill will bring accountability when police report their statistics to their city councils or county commissions.
"It requires debate. It requires local units of government to work with law enforcement agencies" to address profiling and find ways to combat the practice, he said.
During the debate, some senators objected to the cost of data collection and questioned whether producing statistics would invite class-action lawsuits against police departments that stop a high proportion of minorities.
Mr. West countered that the numbers alone do not prove anything, and he accepted an amendment that says the data collected "shall not constitute prima facie evidence of racial profiling."
Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, suggested that officers would be forced, when it is not obvious, to ask drivers about their ethnicity.
"Don't you think some people would find it offensive?" Ms. Nelson asked during debate on the bill.
"People would find it more offensive to be stopped for no apparent reason, have their vehicles searched in front of their kids and be humiliated in front of their kids," Mr. West said.
Ms. Nelson and Sen. Jon Lindsay, R-Houston, were the two who opposed the bill.
Joseph Berra, general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the Senate bill is "something civil rights advocates can hold onto."
Mr. Berra said The News' study was some of the first evidence of what might be racial profiling, "but the prevalence and the extent is hard to say." That's why the data collection in the Senate bill is important, he said.
Under the bill, police and sheriffs would be required to record three pieces of information not currently required on tickets – the ethnicity of the driver, whether a search was conducted and whether it was consensual.
One aspect of Mr. West's bill would add a second phase of data collection in 2004 if police and sheriffs' officials don't have video and audio equipment installed in patrol cars. Those without the video would also have to collect data on pedestrian stops and verbal traffic warnings.
Many police departments had objected to that provision until Mr. West began working to provide state money for the video cameras.
He told senators Wednesday that about 8,000 cameras would cost $35 million and that they would protect officers, create more evidence for prosecutions and provide a record that could be reviewed if officers are accused of racial profiling.
Mr. West promised that the more onerous reporting requirements would be dropped if he could not find a way to pay for the police cameras.
The racial profiling bill in the House, sponsored by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, has been endorsed by committee and is awaiting action by the full chamber.
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