The ACLU's campaign is calling on residents to contact their local police departments to urge them to study the problem of racial profiling by instituting programs to collect data on officers' traffic enforcement practices. Some local African-American leaders applauded yesterday's announcement. Kelly said training of police officers is a crucial part of the plan. According to the Times, the Rev. Leslie Braxton, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, said the data collection could be a deterrent against racial profiling. But Braxton disagreed with the claim that there is no institutional racism within the Seattle Police Department.
Bigotry is there.
There's a long history of unfavorable relations with law enforcement and the African-American community. David Harris, a professor of law at the University of Toledo and an authority on racial profiling, said collecting information on traffic and other stops is important for police to keep the trust of the community. Data collection is job one, a modest first step, but a necessary first step. If we don't have the data, we can't make decisions. At the very minimum, he said, the data collected should include race, ethnic group, gender, location, time of stop and reason for the stop.