LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A report by a civil liberties group has found that Los Angeles police officers are more likely to stop and search black and Hispanic residents than they are whites, even though whites are more often found carrying guns and contraband.

"The results of this study raise grave concerns that African-Americans and Hispanics are over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched, and over-arrested," said report author Ian Ayres, a Yale Law School economist and professor.

Ayres' report, published Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, analyzed the Los Angeles Police Department's own accounts of 810,000 pedestrian and motor vehicle stops in the year from July 2003 to June 2004.

Even after researchers controlled for demographics and neighborhood crime rates, they found significantly higher stop rates for black and Latino residents. For every 10,000 residents, blacks were nearly three times more likely to be stopped than white and other "non-minority" residents, facing 3,400 more stops. Hispanics were stopped on 350 more occasions.

Even though Ayres used the LAPD's own data, his findings were at odds with an earlier analysis carried out for the department. The LAPD acknowledged racial disparities in some divisions but, after controlling for several variables, found "no consistent pattern of race effects."

Ayres, however, said one officer stopped more than 100 blacks and 100 Hispanics but only one white. The professor did not include that officer in his analysis because it was an extreme situation and could skew results.

A summary of Ayres' report states that during the past five years the LAPD has received nearly 1,200 citizen complaints alleging racial profiling, but the department hasn't sustained a single one.

"Los Angeles officials have yet to acknowledge the scope of the problem of racially biased policing or to fully embrace solutions," the summary stated.

News from The Associated Press

Racism is alive and well in the LAPD...

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"As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing, when their credit ran out, the game stopped."
--Marriner S. Eccles, FDR's fed Chairman. (1951)

I'm done...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Yeah.
A group interested in uncovering racial injustice/discrimination ACTUALLY uncovered racial injustice/discrimination, ergo we must ignore it...


At this rate, anybody with an interest in uncovering something should automatically be ignored if they manage to succeed to do so...

__________________
"As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing, when their credit ran out, the game stopped."
--Marriner S. Eccles, FDR's fed Chairman. (1951)