Walker proposes state bill
targeting racial profiling
■ If passed, House Bill 2441
will help ensure that Oregon
law enforcement agencies do
not target minority groups
By Kendall Larsen
Oregon Daily Emerald
Over the past few years, deter
mined students, parents and commu
nity leaders all over Oregon have been
rallying for legislative recognition for
the issue of racial profiling. With Ore
gon House Bill 2441, they may get it.
On March 30, the House Judiciary
Committee heard a proposed bill by
state Rep. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, to
aid law enforcement agencies’ partici
pation in data collection and analysis.
The bill is an expanded version of HB
2433, which was passed in 1997.
“This builds upon that work that
was started in 1997,” Walker said.
“But it gives law enforcement some
direction for where to go and how to
accomplish what we want them to ac
complish; to make sure that law en
forcement agencies do not engage in a
practice of discrimination based on
race, color or national origin. ”
Bola Majekobaje, a working advo
cate for the Multicultural Center, said
nearly all her friends have been target
ed by police officers for no reason oth
er than the color of their skin. These
instances range in severity from being
pulled over to being sprayed with
mace.
Majekobaje said students can help
stop the occurrences of racial profiling.
“If we tell our law enforcement that
we know that racial profiling is
wrong, and if we can tell our represen
tatives and senators that it’s wrong,
then we do have a voice,” she said.
HB 2433 made changes to Oregon’s
stop and search laws, giving more au
thority to police officers in making
traffic stops and conducting weapon
searches. A part of the bill addressed
data collection by law enforcement
agencies for the purposes of ensuring
that no community’s police force
specifically targets members of mi
nority groups.
Walker’s introduction to the issue
of racial profiling came when a con
stituent brought her attention to the
lack of funding for helping law en
forcement agencies conduct data col
lection. She then met with the Nation
al Association for the Advancement
of Colored People and became aware
of the many Oregonians who believe
that racial profiling is a serious and
prominent issue.
“We originally were going to man
date that every law enforcement
agency in the state of Oregon do data
collection,” Walker said. “But that just
became an impossible task, because
the citizens of Oregon passed a law
that says the Legislature cannot im
pose an un-funded mandate on local
communities.”
Instead of spending precious mon
ey on mandating data collection, the
facilitators of the new bill are calling
for the creation of a Law Enforcement
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Committee to analyze the data collect
ed by the various law enforcement
agencies. The bill will also provide
technical assistance to law enforce
ment agencies, Walker said.
Marla Rae, facilitator of the Gover
nor’s Public Safety Council, has
worked with the Community Rela
tions Work Group to create a proto
type for the data collection.
The work group has aldo tried to
ensure the data collected is propor
tional to the actual percentage of mi
nority groups in each cortimunity.
This is tricky, Rae said, because tjhe
demographics of minorities in a cer
tain area may not represent the driv
ing population of that community.
Rae added that even if racial profil
ing is not a common practice within
Oregon law enforcement, the bill will
help to strengthen the trust relation
ship between police officers and their
communities.
“Law enforcement agencies do not
fear data collection,” Walker said of the
support she has received from agencies
around the state. The bill would allow
each community the flexibility to de
velop its own system without a great
deal of legislative control.
Some students at the University
have shared personal experiences
they have had with racial profiling.
Walker said she was impressed with
the students speaking their minds,
which she believes is important when
dealing with legislators.
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