Table of Contents
DEDICATION
PREFACE – A Note to the Reader
SECTION I
POLICE ABUSE - COULD IT HAPPEN TO YOU OR YOUR FAMILY?
1. What You Should Have With You If You Are Stopped by the Police in Your Vehicle
2. Actions to Take If You Are Stopped by the Police in Your Vehicle
3. Actions to Take If You Are Stopped on the Streets
4. Actions to Take If Police Knock At Your Door
5. How and Where to File Complaints
SECTION II
WHAT IS RACIAL PROFILING?
1. What Can Happen if Law Enforcement
Practices Illegal Profiling?
2. How to Implement Good Law Enforcement Programs Without Illegal Profiling
3. What Resources are Available to Law Enforcement Agencies?
4. What Officers Should Work in Highway Interdiction and other Aggressive Enforcement Programs?
5. How Should Supervisors Respond to Racial Profiling Complaints?
SECTION III
HOW TO FORM CRIMINAL JUSTICE COALITIONS
1. Build Legal Defense Teams
2. Create Databases
3. Research Qualifications for a Cop
4. Research Ticket Writing Policies
5. Research ‘Use of Force’ and ‘Deadly Use of Force’
6. Zero Tolerance For Abuse
SECTION IV
HOW TO FORM CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARDS
1. Functions of Civilian Review Boards (CRB)
2. What Could Be Some of the Common Problems with Civilian Review Boards?
SECTION V
SUGGESTIONS TO STOP POLICE ABUSE
1. Suggestions from the Community
2. Suggestions from Human Rights Watch
3. What Racial Profiling Laws Will Consist Of
Appendix
About the Author
PREFACE
A Note to the Reader
Cathy Harris, a former 20 year Customs and Border Protection Officer, is using her expertise with law enforcement officers to educate the community on how and why "Civilian Review Boards" must be formed.
The police go into mostly white neighborhoods to protect and black neighborhoods to harass. This must change!
This booklet will show you how to save your life when you interact with the police – in your car, in the streets and in your home. It will also show you how and where to report acts of racial profiling and police brutality.
Police officers are committing racial profiling and police brutality in our communities’ everyday. Tons of illegal incidents go unreported because many people fear the police.
Despite the wave of police shootings and beatings of mostly young blacks and latinos during the last few years, the Justice Department has done almost nothing to nail abusive cops.
Black activists don’t trust local police agencies to self-investigate or police themselves. Nor do they trust district attorneys, grand juries, police commissions or local officials to be any more fair and impartial when investigating the police.
The Justice Department has always had on the books a strong arsenal of civil rights statutes to prosecute abusive police officers. This office is equipped to dispatch their top civil rights lawyers to handle federal probes. This will happen only if we demand it!
More often than not, however, it has taken major media attention, large scale protests and even a major riot, such as Rodney King LA riot of 1992, before the Justice Department has used its legal weapons.
The Justice Department came under fire when activists accused them of moving too slowly on the racial profiling involving the New Jersey Turnpike.
Eventually New Jersey officials admitted to Racial Profiling, stating that “minority motorists have been treated differently than non-minority motorists.”
Some Other Disparities Against Minority Motorists:
1) Minority drivers and passengers are more often asked to exit their motor vehicle.
2) Minority occupants are more often asked questions not related to the vehicle violations.
3) Drug dogs are more often requested to the scene of minority stops.
4) Minorities are more often asked for consent to search.
Where there is evidence of racial profiling and/or police brutality (excessive force), the Attorney General must send a strong message to law enforcement agencies that the Justice Department will go after lawbreakers whether they wear a "mask" or "badge." More important, the Attorney General must put police and city officials on notice that they must take strong actions to halt the use of excessive force by police departments.
