Black Traffic Stops; Bias or behavior

Timothy Birdnow

A Facebook posting by Missouri State Representative Shamed Dogan trumpets hearings about the disparity between black and white stopss by police officers. From the post:

Did it occur to anyone that perhaps black people are pulled over more because a.they drive in a more reckless manner than white or asian people and b. they committ more crimes? Why is it always a matter of some supposed evil intent by the White Man to keep blacks down? Will the African American community ever honestly take a look at itself?

By the way, I wrote about the problems with the numerical approach to this shortly after the Ferguson riots. See here: [link-https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/03/ferguson_by_the_numbers.html]Ferguson by the Numbers.

Sheriff Dave Marshak discusses the way data is collected and what it means:

ook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2357878087764167&id=1418139991737986&_rdr#2358290137722962]My statement on the annual release of Traffic Stop Data:

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office has recently released their annual traffic stop data compiled by law enforcement organizations throughout the state. Now, law enforcement leaders will scramble to explain the disparity index to community leaders, media outlets, and novice statisticians that use the information to argue an incomplete (unvalidated) narrative; minorities are more likely to be stopped and searched by police officers than non-minorities. The report release is an annual event, but nothing we should celebrate each year.

For nearly twenty years, police officers in Missouri have been required to complete a separate form for every traffic stop they conduct. From inception, the data gathered from the traffic stops was to ensure that law enforcement organizations (and individual officers) were not participating in biased based policing practices, but more specifically, pre-textual traffic stops of minorities. The data collected from officers includes the probable cause for the stop, the driver’s sex, race, whether the race was observed prior to the traffic stop, length of the stop, whether the driver or vehicle was searched, the results of the traffic stop, and other observations.

The data from each law enforcement agency is then sent to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for analysis. And yet, for nearly twenty years we have failed to make any progress holding agencies and officers accountable because the benchmark for analyzing the data has been archaic. With updates to the reporting system and analysis, the Attorney General’s Office, would have more success taking on law enforcement agencies that police in a biased way.

Under the present system, analysts simply compare the population to the number of traffic stops. In Jefferson County, approximately 1.1 % of the population is African American. In a county with nearly 225,000 people, an officer that stops a single African American should follow up with 100 traffic stops of white violators if the officer doesn’t want to appear to be biased on a review.

Officers that patrol on/near Interstate Highway 55 will encounter a diversity of drivers not consistent with our resident population, and therefore will have numbers suggesting a higher disparity of minority stops. In another example, officers that use LIDAR to monitor vehicle speeds can identify a speeding vehicle nearly one mile away, with no knowledge of the race of the driver at that distance. If the Deputy makes the decision then to stop a vehicle based on the registered speed, and only later when the vehicle is closer learn of the driver’s race (assuming lighting conditions are sufficient and no tinted windows), he/she will then indicate they knew the driver’s race prior to stopping (which would further generate negative reviews).

Cities and Counties throughout the state have similar and yet varying issues. Some populations change during the day or night, which are attributed to concerts, sporting events, shopping, large scale employers, etc. What about a problem neighborhood that has an increase in crime? If it includes minorities, officers will need to be rotated in/out of that area to keep their stop statistics at acceptable standards. While we would not think anything biased about an African American officer stopping several African American drivers’, such actions (with the current benchmark) would reflect negatively on our community. There are no adjustments in the disparity index or clarification from the annual report to explain what race the officer was (initiating the stop) and that there are other variables, which can create the appearance of impropriety.

Progressive law enforcement agencies like ours typically review the data on a monthly basis for irregularities, concerns, or perceived improprieties. Anything that stands out would be investigated further and should be. We take this responsibility seriously, and every month we examine our traffic stop data.

When analysis suggests a perceived issue, we investigate. We want our officers to police in an unbiased and professional way, protecting your Constitutional Rights as you travel the roadways.

Drawing conclusions from an archaic data collection system allows a consistent narrative that is both biased towards police, and does not allow for sufficient information to hold law enforcement agencies and individual officers accountable for unfair policing practices. I’m glad to see a statement from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt who has pledged to make additional changes for more accurate reporting.

end

He nails it on the head. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Statistics are so often used to push bad and mistaken ideas, and yet we continue to give them the utmost credence, and the media follows along slavishly because they want what is being pushed. In the end the problem is not in our stars but in ourselves. If blacks ARE stopped in a disproportionate number it is incumbent on them to ask why, not demand they be stopped less. The fact is, blacks often drive in a much more dangerous manner, speeding, cutting lanes, etc. I don't have stats, but I will believe my lying eyeballs ove the media's assurances. But you can't say that; you hav to pretend we are exactly the same only white people hate blacks and want to torment them. Right.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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