DPS to track stops for profiling

The deal, which ends a five-year-old lawsuit, also requires the state Department of Public Safety to:

● Modify its procedures when vehicles are stopped so drivers are detained no longer than reasonably necessary, and specifically not make people wait for a drug-sniffing dog to arrive unless there is reasonable cause to believe a crime is being committed.

● Make reasonable efforts to get the Legislature to approve funding to install video cameras in more patrol cars.

● Search vehicles they stop only after getting written consent from the owners.

The agreement, approved by Magistrate Lawrence Anderson, specifically requires DPS to collect "meaningful" data on its traffic stops for the next three years, including the race of those involved.

Attorney Lee Phillips, who filed the 2001 lawsuit, said that will allow the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which assisted with the litigation, to analyze the data to see if minorities are being pulled over more often and, once stopped, more likely to be searched.

That same data also eventually will be made public.

The deal also requires Gov. Janet Napolitano to form a nine-member Citizens Traffic Stop Advisory Board to review DPS policies as well as the data about traffic stops to see whether there are patterns of "racial profiling."

Phillips said this is the first agreement of its kind in the country. He said it will ensure DPS takes "concrete steps to assure the public that their officers are not discriminating against people on the highways based on the color of their skin."

In agreeing to the settlement, DPS specifically denied its officers engage in profiling.

"The director of the Department of Public Safety stands behind his officers and what they're doing on the highways and what they're doing in regards to criminal interdiction on the highways," said DPS spokesman Rick Knight.

Phillips, however, said data of traffic stops along Interstate 40 and Interstate 17 in Coconino County analyzed by Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University researcher, showed that blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be stopped than other motorists. And once stopped, Phillips said, they were more likely to be detained and more likely to be searched.

Knight said the state agreed to settle to avoid a prolonged lawsuit, and because there is nothing in the agreement DPS finds offensive.

For example, he said, video cameras are just as likely to protect DPS officers from charges of abuse or harassment. "It's actually cleared them on some complaints," he said.

But Phillips said it also will allow the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped with the lawsuit, to review the tapes "and judge objectively whether or not people are being discriminated against when they're stopped out there on the highway."

The deal, however, does not actually force DPS to buy more video systems at $4,500 apiece for their vehicles. Instead, it simply mandates the agency request additional funding for at least 50 vehicles a year for the next three years. There is no requirement for the Legislature to provide the funds.

There is money in this year's budget, though, for some new equipment.

Knight also said the DPS has been using written consent forms for vehicle searches for years. But he acknowledged it hasn't been a universal practice — something that now will be required.

A 2003 Arizona Daily Star review of more than a quarter-million DPS records indicated the agency's officers searched Hispanics more often than Anglos — about 1 in 25 compared with 1 in 48. By contrast, officers found contraband on 1 in 5 Hispanics compared with 1 in 3 Anglos.

That review also found that officers searched 1 in 18 blacks despite finding contraband on 1 in 4.

National experts said the results didn't prove racial profiling, but agreed they were a cause for concern. Anderson, the magistrate, said he was glad the case was settled without a trial. "It is in everyone's best interest to have resolved this case," he said.