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Street Roots • July 10-16, 2015
PROFILING, fro m page 4
CIO plans to conduct outreach to educate
people about how they can file a com plaint,
and how they can do so anonymously.
“If those complaints show that,
consistently, an officer is harassing certain
communities, there will be a tracking
mechanism that, hopefully, will raise a red
flag,” she says.
Portland attorney Melvin Oden-Orr is a
co-creator of Driving While Black The App, a
free app that informs drivers of their rights,
has the ability to record interactions with
police and offers a platform for filing
complaints. He says he hears stories
regularly from family and friends who feel
police pulled them over because they were
black.
“Many people feel as though they’ve been
profiled, but if they do not register their
complaint, then all it is, is anecdotal
evidence. If they submit a complaint, it
becomes a part of official public record,” he
says. “Fast forward three years down the
road, and a motorist dies at a traffic stop at
the hands of an officer. The lawyer
representing that victim can do a public
records request for all complaints.”
Oden-Orr says if a pattern of profiling
emerges from the complaints, there would
be substantial evidence that not only was the
officer guilty of profiling, but that the agency
he works for knew about it, did nothing, and
was therefore also responsible for the
motorist’s death.
Portland police spokesman S g t Pete
Sim pson says signs that you’ve been profiled
are very subjective. “I would suspect a lot of
people believe they are being profiled but
aren’t,” he says.
The departm ent came under fire in 2013
when it instituted hot-spot policing by
sending officers more frequently to high
crime areas. Critics worried it would lead to
increased racial profiling.
According to S g t Greg Stewart, the
program is still operational, however the
departm ent has moved its focus beyond high-
crime areas only, and is focused on the
community policing aspect of i t
“An example of this,” he says “is that the
calls were set up at high school football and
basketball games. These had nothing to do
with crime, but instead were set up to give
officers a chance to interact more with the
community.”
He says while the departm ent is still in
the process of analyzing the data, it “does
not appear to be generating additional stops
or searches. It actually looks as if it may be
reducing them .”
Veteran criminal defense attorney Edie
Rogoway filed a lawsuit last year alleging
racial discrimination and seeking damages
from two police officers and the City of
Hillsboro on behalf of h er African-American
client, Jermaine Robinson, who, the suit
claims, was assaulted by police in 2012.
Rogoway says racial profiling “is very, very
difficult to prove.
“The reason for that is because, when a
police officer gets on the stand and testifies
under oath that someone didn’t signal, or
didn’t have a bike light on, how do you prove
that that wasn’t the reason?
“When you think about all of us that drive
or ride our bike regularly, it’s impossible to
do everything perfectly all the time. But the
reality is that when you’re a 44-year-old
Jewish woman who drives a Honda Civic -
which is me - most of the things that I do
that are possibly driving violations, even if a
police officer saw it, if I’m not speeding
excessively or doing something really
outlandish, I’m not going to get pulled over.”
Jason Kafoury, an attorney whose firm has
filed several discrimination suits says, “We
have gone to juries at least three or four
times over the last six years that I’ve been
here, and we’ve never prevailed on a race
discrimination case. I think the people in
Portland don’t want to believe there’s racism,
so they want to look for other reasons.”
In the case of Brenda Moaning, a woman
who was falsely arrested for shoplifting at an
H&M in 2011, Kafoury says, “She was the
only African-American shopper in the store,
and the video person was following just her,
for three minutes, and still the jury couldn’t
find that there was racial discrimination.”
His firm did, however, prevail on the
accusations of false arrest and battery.
Rogoway says getting a discrimination
case before a jury is a challenge in itself
because a judge can dismiss it due to
qualified immunity - meaning that even if
the officer’s action was inappropriate, if the
judge thinks other officers would have acted
in the same way, the officer is immune from
prosecution.
Rep. Lew Frederick (D-Portland), who
introduced the bill, told house
representatives about his own experiences
as an African American who’s been stopped
“more times in a single year than most of
you have in your lifetime.” He went on to say,
“Your aye votes will mean a lot to me
personally and a lot to communities across
the state where people not only experience
this, but live their lives anticipating the next
encounter.”
Only five members of Oregon Legislature,
all republican, voted against the bill. None
responded to requests for com m ent
The bill was backed by the Portland
NAACP, Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon Latino
Health Coalition, Family Forward Oregon,
Oregon Health Equity Alliance and the
Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police, all
saying it’s a significant step toward ending
profiling across the state.
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emily@streetroots. org
I think I’ve been profiled, now what?
How do 1 know if
I’ve been profiled?
As of Jan. 1,2016, every law enforcement
agency in Oregon will be required to have
numerous ways for citizens to submit complaints,
includi ng anonymously by phone or via a third
According to attorney
Melvin Oden-Orr, there
are often three common
party.
If you file a complaint, include as much
information about the incident as possible,
including the officer’s name or badge number,
when and where the incident took place, and -
regardless of whether or not you can prove it - . \
>a
* You are a per son of
color
• You’ve been stopped
when you know you’ve
done nothing wrong
♦When the officer
approaches you, he or
why you felt you were targeted. If you don’t know
the officer’s information, include a physical
description.
If there are witnesses, make sure you get their
names and contact information to include in your
Oden-Orr says it's
important not to confuse
Even if there isn’t enough evidence for your
complaint to result in disciplinary action, it could
still make an impact. If your complaint is similar to
complaints other people have filed against the
same officer or police department, it may help
point to systematic profiling when reviewed by
the state, which could lead to action or serve as
an officer engaged in
community policing. In a
scenario, the officer may
simply ask you how your
■
Attorney Jason Kafoury
that will be no fewer than 90 days and no longer
than 180 days after the incident occurred.
If your incident involved an officer with the
Portland Police Bureau, you can currently submit
a complaint with the Independent Police Review
Commission using its online form, available in 11
languages, at www.poFifandonfine.com /
audftor/fndex.cf m?c=42860 or submit your
L complaint anonymously by calling the review
says other signs you
may have been profiled
include:
•Getting pulled over for
failing to signal (oran
equipment violation)
enforcement prior to
— ed orpu llec
board at 503-823-0146.
BIB
over
Comments from an
stereotypes
/
An easy way to make sure you're including all
; ; /
;
co-created by Oden-Orr, and use the form
provided to fill out pertinent information
» till
information you’ve entered in a
e-mail you the ir
form, which you j can then forward to the
appropriate iaw enforcement agency. The app
a
Simpson declined to list
profiling indicators,
saying they are very
will also help you to identify which department’s
jurisdiction you were in when the incident
occurred, along with its contact information. The
app works on both iPhone and Android <
subjective. “I would
suspect a lot of people
believe they are being
profiled but aren’t,” he
■ B I
th e re ’s an app for that!
the right information in your complaint is to
download the free Driving While Black The App,
♦An officer uses a racial
slur or other
g w
Portland police
sDokesman Pete
But don’t wait too long - there is a statute of
limitations. Each law enforcement agency must
-I
I
systems.