By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Joplin’s police chief, Lane Roberts, invited members of the NAACP on Thursday night to encourage people to call him or a police commander if someone feels unjustly stopped by police.

The chief addressed about a dozen members of the group at the Joplin Service Center, 110 Main St., about the Police Department’s racial profiling numbers.

All law-enforcement agencies in the state are expected to file yearly reports with the attorney general’s office, reporting the number of stops officers make, how many searches are done, how many searches result in the seizure of contraband, and the race of the those involved.

Racial profiling

The purpose of collecting and analyzing the information is to shed light on how serious racial profiling is across the state, and so that people can find out how likely it is that their local law-enforcement agency is conducting racially motivated stops.

“We went the right direction last year,” Roberts told the group. “We want to keep that going on.”

But that does not mean the disparity rate — or the likelihood of racial profiling — is greatly reduced. Joplin’s index follows a statewide trend of being on the increase over a period of years. The reports do show an increase in stops, though. That could be contributing to the rate.

The chief said he wanted the residents to know that he acknowledges work needs to be done on the disparity index, “but we’re making progress.”

“I want to create some level of confidence that things are getting better or will with their help.”

Joplin’s report shows that the department’s disparity index, or a rating of its stops weighted by the population of minorities, is hovering at about the same level as the past several years.

It also shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be searched. The rate of contraband found, though, corresponds with the ratio of searches.

Hispanics are a lot less likely to be stopped than whites or blacks, but more likely to be searched and less likely to have contraband than whites, the report suggests.

Statewide reports

Attorney General Chris Koster reported on June 1 that the results of the statewide reports show that there has been an increasing trend of stopping black drivers since 2000 when the reports first were required.

The statewide disparity index is 1.59. Joplin’s is 2.0, though it’s only a tenth of a percent higher than last year while there were about 7,000 more stops than a year earlier.

Roberts told the Joplin audience that crime is down 15 percent. He said the crime-rate decrease is attributable to having more officers on the street as a result of the public-safety sales tax, and officers being more vigilant and making more stops.

But, he said, he does not want officers stopping anyone without reason.

Several residents complained that people they know are repeatedly stopped and questioned about where they’re going and where they work. They also complained that some officers refused to give their names and badge numbers when asked by those they stop.

“When somebody refuses to give you their name and badge number, you tell me,” the chief said. He said he knows there has historically been racist incidents by police officers. “If I catch them doing racial enforcement, they’re out of a job,” he said.

Sensitivity

He asked residents to help him train the department’s young officers to be sensitive to diversity, though he noted that officers may have legitimate reasons to stop or search people who think they were unfairly targeted.

But, he said, that people who believe they were treated unfairly should call a police administrator with time and place of the incident so that supervisors can check out the officer’s actions.

After the chief’s report and the question-and-answer session, several audience members said they were satisfied. Several people said former administrations did not visit with them about police issues.

Asked how she felt about the chief and two other members of the department meeting with the group, Ernestine Carr said, “I think it’s great because we’re getting it face-to-face and not through someone else. It’s direct.”

Another resident, Charlene Calhoun, told the chief about family and friends having been stopped without what she saw as good reason.

“I’m glad because I got to tell them what I’m concerned about,” she said after the meeting. “It was good to have them come so we can understand why they do things the way they do.”







“We can disagree without being disagreeable.”

— Charlene Calhoun