'Astoundingly disrespectful': Residents pan Des Moines' racial profiling proposal

Des Moines' efforts to prohibit discrimination and racial profiling by city employees earned a strong rebuke Monday night from residents, who said it does not do enough to target profiling by the city's police officers. 

"This is astoundingly disrespectful," said Betty C. Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP.

Andrews said the city's proposal earned an "F" in her book. 

The Civil and Human Rights Commission voted unanimously against recommending the proposal. Now it will be up to the city manager and council to decide whether to move forward with the plan or go back to the drawing board, City Attorney Jeff Lester said.  

For months, residents and groups like the NAACP and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement have called on city leaders to adopt new rules prohibiting racial profiling by police after several recent high-profile incidents.  

More:Another lawsuit alleging racial profiling filed against Des Moines officer

In October, Des Moines settled a lawsuit with Lonnie Porter, an African American man who videotaped a Des Moines officer who pulled him over in December 2017. Porter claimed he was pulled over without cause. The city paid him $25,000.

Last month, the city approved $25,000 payments each to Montray Little and Jared Clinton, two African American men who were stopped by police near Union Park last July. 

Several people who attended Monday night's meeting said they were disappointed the city's proposal fails to directly mention the Des Moines Police Department. 

RELATED:Iowa NAACP urges passage of racial profiling legislation

Instead, it requires all city employees to perform their duties without regard to race, ethnicity, gender or other characteristics, and prohibits employees from denying services, including enforcement of the law, based on individual characteristics.

That's not enough to address the racial profiling happening in the Des Moines Police Department, according to Laural Clinton, the mother of one of the men stopped by police near Union Park last summer.

► MORE:Des Moines pays $75,000 settlement in 2018 racial-profiling case

She said the city needs language specifically addressing police stops. 

“We’re asking to partner with (police),” she said Monday night. “We’re not all saying that they’re all bad and horrible and not worth our time, but we have to live here with them.”

Last fall, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement asked the city to adopt an ordinance that would:  

• Ban racial profiling
• Prohibit pretextual stops (when officers stop a car for one reason but then use it to investigate something else)
• Make data collection and disclosure on all Des Moines police traffic stops mandatory
• Create a citizens' review board to review resident complaints
• Require implicit bias and de-escalation training
• Make marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority for Des Moines police 

The proposal unveiled at Monday night's meeting does not address several of the issues laid out by CCI and other groups. 

While it would require employees and elected officials to take implicit bias training every two years, it does not require de-escalation training, prohibit pretextual stops by police or require police to collect data on traffic stops, including the race of people being stopped by police, or make that data public. 

"It's good to see something drafted. We're glad the City Council is moving something forward," said Emily Shields, a member of the Civil and Human Rights Commission. "However, in my (view), the ordinance is pretty convoluted and doesn’t go far enough, in terms of what we know the community is looking for and what we would like to see in the city."

One big drawback for many at Monday's meeting was the lack of an independent body to investigate allegations of racial profiling by police. 

Instead, the proposal recommended the city manager, or someone appointed by the city manager, investigate complaints, "unless a department has already established a citizen complaint process prior to the adoption of this policy."

Daniel Zeno, a policy director with the ACLU, said that could allow the police department to continue investigating complaints made against the department internally. 

“That’s the current practice that we’re trying to change,” Zeno said Monday.

► PREVIOUSLY:'We need it right away': Des Moines residents ask city for racial profiling ban

Andrews, the NAACP president, suggested the city's Human and Civil Rights Commission be appointed to investigate racial-profiling accusations. 

Andrews provided the commission with 16 suggestions, including some recommendations the NAACP made in University Heights, a small city near Iowa City that adopted the state's first racial-profiling ordinance this year.

University Heights' ordinance requires implicit and explicit bias training for officers, provides funding for data collection software and creates an advisory board to review complaints.

The NAACP is working on an “alternate” ordinance that it plans to present to Des Moines leaders.

The organization has "the expertise in our community," Andrews said, "and we will be providing a substitute anti-profiling ordinance."