Des Moines council must reject toothless, embarrassing racial profiling policy

"We don’t have to do anything. We just have to live,” Laural Clinton said.

She was talking about the likelihood of attracting negative police attention if you are black in Des Moines.

One of Clinton's sons, Jared, recently received a settlement from the city over a police stop. Other such lawsuits are in the pipeline or have been settled.

The data tend to back Clinton's claim. But the city administrators and police department still avoid dealing with it in a meaningful way. 

In the wake of multiple documented incidents, the advocacy organization Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and other community members approached the Des Moines City Council last November seeking a ban on racial profiling and pretextual stops. Profiling refers to law enforcement action against an individual based on their actual or perceived race. Iowa is one of 20 states that has no law explicitly prohibiting it. 

A pretextual stop is one in which police stop a driver on some pretext in order to investigate for something else. Seventeen states had banned those as of 2015 and 18 require mandatory data collection for all stops and searches. Iowa does neither.

The city council responded to the community calls by asking the city manager to draft an ordinance. The city attorney wrote one which was shared with the public Monday at a Des Moines Human Rights Commission meeting. To call it generic and toothless would be an understatement.

 Instead of banning anything, it's a “policy on equitable provision of city services and prohibition of profiling" for all city employees. It includes clauses like: "Supervisors will endeavor to ensure the working environment is free of bias" and "If the complaint is substantiated, the City will take appropriate measures commensurate to the severity..." 

It leaves it to the city manager to investigate bias complaints except when a department has its own complaint process. The police department does, which suggests it would continue to investigate itself.

Nothing in proposal would be mandatory

Most significantly, nothing in it is mandatory.

The sense of indignation in the full room was palpable, and shared by the human rights commissioners, who all voted to reject it.

 Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said in an email that the department is "wholly invested in providing equitable, respectful, and professional police services" many of which are suggested in the proposed ordinance. He noted the department has, and will continue to train employees on implicit bias through Drake University, that they receive de-escalation training and that an Unbiased Policing policy has been in effect since early 2018.  

The city didn't concede to any wrongdoing in paying $75,000 to settle a suit over the stop and search of the car Jared Clinton and Montray Little were in. In a police video of the incident, Officer Kyle Thies said he stopped it because he felt Clinton was "acting funny." Thies' funny feelings seem to crop up disproportionately around African-Americans. Another suit has just been filed resulting from his pursuit of 29-year-old Courtney Saunders, who made a turn last July that Thies said just "didn't feel right."

Half of the 253 people Thies arrested in 2017 were black, though African-Americans are only 11% of Des Moines’ population.

Police have contended that few complaints are filed so there must not be a systemic problem, says Harvey Harrison, a retired lawyer who has been researching profiling in Des Moines. The police department doesn't release information on police stops that don't result in arrests. So unless a someone sues or files a complaint with the department, there's no way to know. And people have told Harrison they don't trust police to credibly investigate themselves and they fear retaliation for complaining. 

Disproportionate arrests in black and white

In 2017, using data from the Iowa Department of Transportation, the Polk County Sheriff and the Iowa Data Warehouse, Harrison learned that over four to four-and-a-half  years (2014-2017 or 2018) 22% of the citations issued in Des Moines were to African-Americans as were 29% of all bookings (arrests). And 33% of citations issued to black people in Des Moines resulted in arrest, compared to 20.5% for whites. 

Parizek suggested some police actions could have been motivated by mandatory arrest policies such as for domestic violence, or triggered by victims' complaints or felony drugs, weapons or property crimes. But what about traffic stops like those described earlier where the people stopped were guilty of nothing?

Despite being 11% of the population, African-Americans were targeted in 44% of all arrests for interference with official acts, and 31% of all citations for possession of a controlled substance. Parizek said those interference arrests could include other charges. 

More:

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

Another lawsuit alleging racial profiling filed against Des Moines officer

In 2015,  Harrison, along with AMOS, the Drake Legal Clinic and Iowa chapters of the NAACP and ACLU, issued a  report on racial profiling in Polk County that told the stories of multiple African-Americans whose cars were stopped for no apparent reason, or for a broken tail light, which led police to do searches but resulted in no charges..

It has been 27 years since a black man named Larry Milton was severely beaten on the head with a flashlight by white police officers arresting him for public intoxication and resisting arrest. The incident provoked widespread calls for a civilian review board to oversee allegations against police. But the police internal affairs unit concluded the officers acted appropriately, and a Polk County grand jury declined to indict them. Milton did win a lawsuit  in federal court.

Little has changed.  There is still no independent review process. It's apparent that some officers start out with negative feelings about African-Americans, and some act on them. The city administration clearly has no desire to significantly reform anything so the City Council must.

Recorded police call highlights profiling issues

This recorded and transcribed 2014 phone conversation between a Des Moines police dispatcher and a patrol officer appeared in the Polk County racial profiling report. It involved the Juneteenth celebration, which commemorates the abolition of slavery. In Des Moines, it has helped raise awareness of black history and culture, and is observed with picnics, parades, games and live entertainment.

Police officer: Yeah - I’m kind of curious what is going to happen in Evelyn Davis Park tonight

Dispatcher:    Why?

Police officer: Oh. It’s crazy up there

Dispatcher:  Don’t tell me that (expletive) I don’t want to deal with it

Police officer: Got that Juneteenth festival thing going on up there

Dispatcher: That’s fantastic - you guys going to hang out up there

Police officer: Well we were supposed to be up there from...

Dispatcher:  Dirty do rags on (not decipherable) peoples

Police officer: Yeah Yeah – we were supposed to be up there from 3:00 till 5:00 but luckily we got a couple of runs that keep us away

Dispatcher:  I feel bad for that

Dispatcher:  Do you guys have bullet proof vests

Police officer: No

Dispatcher:  Maybe they should look into something like that

Police officer: Yeah you think that would be awesome - you think

Dispatcher:  Well if we give you anything there I’m just going to say stay in the station and wait

Police officer: Yeah I know  – no kidding

Police officer: The cops can’t wait to get out of there either

 Dispatcher:  They know (expletive) is going to erupt  and it’s going to be all their fault

Police officer: Yep exactly

Dispatcher:  I hate that area

Police officer: Yep I hear ya

A search of newspaper archives using the worlds Juneteenth and arrest turned up nothing. 

As Laural Clinton said, “We don’t have to do anything. We just have to live.”