After seven silent years, Sacramento's racial-profiling commission wants to start doing its job

A racial-profiling commission that hasn’t done much of anything the past seven years may finally get a second life.

Members and staff of the city of Sacramento’s Community Racial Profiling Commission tell SN&R there’s movement to revive the long-dormant body, which was rendered toothless after spearheading a troubling 2008 report that found police were twice as likely to pull over black motorists than nonblack drivers. Black and Latino drivers were also asked to exit their vehicles at higher rates than their white and Asian counterparts, the report’s executive summary states.

The findings sparked a series of reforms that were undertaken by the police department, but there’s been no external review to see whether those reforms have worked.

At the center of this hands-off approach is the racial-profiling commission, which is prevented from officially hearing community concerns or reviewing the traffic-stop demographic data that the police department collects.

“It’s not even their fault,” said Councilwoman Angelique Ashby, who planned to meet with committee members on April 16 as part of a larger effort to hear police accountability concerns in the city.

Long story short: The commission’s charter was written in such a way that its mission essentially ended once the 2008 report was released. The advisory body has been spinning its wheels ever since, despite anecdotal complaints that minority drivers are still being targeted in enforcement stops.

“We wouldn’t need a racial-profiling commission if we didn’t have a problem,” said Efren Gutierrez, a community activist who mounted an unsuccessful city council campaign last year. “Let’s not be naive.”

In recent months, the behind-the-scenes effort to amend the committee’s charter has picked up. The process is unspooling as the nation reacts to the death of Walter L. Scott, another unarmed black male dead at the hands of a police officer, following a traffic stop gone awry in South Carolina.

“I think it does show, to me, that a committee like this is necessary,” longtime member Rev. Ashiya Odeye said of the incident.

Closer to home, protesters have clashed with police, resulting in numerous arrests against those calling for greater law-enforcement oversight.

Along with Maile Hampton, a black activist whose misdemeanor “lynching” arrest has been widely condemned, four others are facing charges or have been convicted of infractions related to their participation in a January 18 protest calling attention to law enforcement abuses.

“It’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” said Cres Vellucci, a representative of the National Lawyers Guild’s local chapter. The guild has worked to arrange pro bono defense and appeals on behalf of the accused.

Vellucci believes police have deliberately targeted organizers as a way of dissuading people from protesting. “They know exactly who everybody is,” he said of the police. “They know who the organizations are. They’re sending a message.”

Meanwhile, the effort to unshackle an advisory body that’s supposed to track who the police stop and why stalled over policy language and political disinterest. That left the racial-profiling committee without a real purpose and a frustrated, turnover-prone membership.

In recent years, the commission has scheduled fewer meetings and canceled more of them. It’s met twice this year so far, but canceled all but one of the four meetings scheduled last year. In 2010, the committee met eight times.

City attorneys have told commission members they need a benefactor on the city council to bring their amended charter to committee, a crucial first step before the council can vote on the matter. Elected representatives have been largely deaf to such requests. Council members Allen Warren, Larry Carr and Jeff Harris didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

“We can do so much more than we’re doing,” acknowledged Ashby, who is gathering input on police-accountability issues as part of a public safety ad hoc subcommittee that formed in the wake of civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., where police targeted black residents with citations and fines for a period of years.

“This is one of those silver-lining moments,” she said of Ferguson. “It prompted our mayor to take a leadership role, and it prompted us to do this.”

Ashby suggested a revamped commission should examine issues of bias, not just race, and examine arrest data, not just traffic-stop data. Most importantly, she said, the committee needs a “defined role with police. Because right now they really don’t [have one].”

Odeye said an amended charter proposal has been delivered to all council members for review. If approved, it would empower the commission to advise the council on all profiling matters, not just with regard to traffic stops. The commission would act as a liaison between the community and police, and help residents bring formal complaints to the city’s Office of Public Safety and Accountability, which monitors the police and fire departments.

Along with reviving the commission, Odeye and Gutierrez—who co-founded the Justice Reform Coalition in 2005—want to provide OPSA with more resources. Aside from an assistant, director Francine Tournour is OPSA’s lone staff member. “She’s good at what she does,” Odeye said. “But she’s still only one person.”

One thing a revived commission still wouldn’t be able to do, it seems, is study traffic-stop data. Odeye said police officials have told him that there’s “no way for them to extract what we want,” and that such raw data would be “meaningless” without the proper context, something that the authors of the 2008 report acknowledged.

Earlier this year, police chief Sam Somers Jr. said his department would be one of several agencies around the nation to allow UCLA to study its enforcement stops and use-of-force incidents over a period of three years.

Ultimately, Odeye and Gutierrez want the racial-profiling commission to evolve into a full-scale civilian-review board with subpoena powers over the police department. “That is the ultimate goal,” Odeye said.

It’s also unlikely, with the Sacramento Police Officers Association and others against the idea. Tournour is also on the fence about a civilian-review board. She says OPSA’s monitor-auditing form of oversight is more appropriate for a city of Sacramento’s size.

But she did share the optimism of Odeye and Gutierrez that the commission will finally be revived in some fashion. All three also describe a good working relationship with the Sacramento Police Department, which they say is receptive to community input.

“They seem to be the only department that’s responding to any of the people’s wishes,” Odeye said.

Regarding her role on the ad hoc committee, Ashby hopes to have a police accountability framework before council this summer for discussion.