UPDATE: ORGANIZATIONS SOUND ALARM ON DURHAM POLICE
DEPARTMENT FOR RACIAL PROFILING AND SELECTIVE DRUG ENFORCEMENT
Ian A. Mance, Staff Attorney,
Southern Coalition for Social Justice
perceived by Durham drivers as
such a transgressive act, since the
burden now rests with the police to
inform the motorist of their right
to refuse.
“These troubling statistics indicate
that the city’s reputation as a haven
for progressive politics and racial
equity is sadly undeserved, at least
insofar as it concerns its criminal
justice apparatus. Changing this
reality is possible, and the wheels
are in motion, but it will take a
serious commitment from a variety
of community stakeholders to reverse
these trends and end these practices—
many of which are deeply embedded
in our current culture of policing.”
This paragraph marked the end
of an April 2014 cover story in
Spectacular Magazine, which
highlighted a series of troubling
revelations about the Durham
Police Department and its patterns
of enforcement in largely black
and brown neighborhoods across
Durham. As many readers will be
aware, a great deal has happened
in the ensuing eight months since
the article was published. Most
notably, in September, following a
year of prodding from the FADE
Coalition and its many community
partners about racial profiling and
discriminatory search practices,
Durham city leaders stepped up to
the plate and instituted a package
of policy reforms aimed at making
significant changes to the way the
police department interacts with the
community it is sworn to serve. Those
reforms came on the heels of a critical
investigative report from the City’s
Human Relations Commission (HRC)
which “found the existence of racial
profiling . . . in the Durham Police
Department.”
As The New York Times reported in
a November 14th cover story, “After
having initially rejected protesters’
demands, the city abruptly changed
course and agreed to require the
police, beginning last month, to
obtain written consent to search
Social science research makes clear
that, given the long and sordid
history of racialized policing in
this country, African-American
drivers are less likely than white
drivers to take actions that police
might perceive as transgressive.
Institutionalizing the assertion of
rights in the context of a traffic
stop thus helps to level the playing
field between black and white
drivers. Moving forward, Durham
drivers should decline requests to
search with confidence and with
the knowledge that refusing such
a request does not give police
probable cause. In most cases, a
refusal to sign the consent form
should end the police encounter.
vehicles in cases where they do not
have probable cause. The consent
forms, in English and Spanish, tell
drivers they do not have to allow the
searches.”
In taking this step, Durham became
one of the first cities in the country
- along with Fayetteville, NC and
Austin, TX - to adopt such a policy.
The change in protocol is specifically
designed to address the HRC’s finding
of racial profiling and to afford
an extra level of protection to the
many motorists who have reported
being bullied into granting verbal
permission or who found themselves
searched without their consent and
absent any finding of probable cause.
Because the policy just took effect
on October 1st, data on its impact is
not yet available; however, based on
the experiences of Fayetteville and
Austin, Durham advocates expect the
policy to lead to a significant drop
in the number of innocent AfricanAmerican motorists who are searched
by the police on an annual basis. Part
of this is because police are much less
inclined to attempt a search if they
believe they won’t be able to secure
the driver’s consent, and part is owed
to the fact that the act of asserting
one’s rights—and saying “no” to a
request to search—will no longer be
www.spectacularmag.com | December 2014 | SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE
In addition to written consent, the
City Council and City Manager
also made changes to the Civilian
Police Review Board and approved
a new policy by which individual
officer stop and search data will
be regularly audited with an aim
of identifying officers responsible
for generating unjustifiable racial
enforcement disparities. These
policies, as well as the recent
commitment from Mayor Bell to
help transition the city away from
a criminal justice approach to lowlevel marijuana offenses, provide
citizens concerned about the conduct
of our local police department reason
to be encouraged. Nevertheless, the
community needs to remain vigilant.
As the department’s heavy-handed,
and at times violent, response to
recent protests over the deaths of
Michael Brown and Eric Garner
have made clear, work remains to be
done to ensure that Durham has a
police department that respects the
constitutional rights of everybody.
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