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Profiling Data Discussed at Two Public Meetings
... from Different Perspectives

As noted in the article on the US Department of Justice, the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing (PCCEP) held two meetings to talk about the Portland Police Bureau (PPB)'s traffic stop data. The first had three community members, including Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch, raising the concern that the general stop rate for Black people in Portland is 19%, and for the Focused Intervention Team it is 44%, while the Black population of Portland is just 6% (PPR #90). The PCCEP invited members of the Police Bureau to present at a follow up meeting. Questions that were raised but not answered include:

--The PPB's report indicates there is no statistical significance by comparing, for instance, stops made by patrol officers to crime victimization rates (rather than crash data, which makes more sense when talking about traffic stops). What would it look like to compare the crash data to the non- traffic officers' stop rates? (Our guess: Not good for the cops.)

--Black drivers are subjected to consent searches 2.2% of the time, while white drivers only get asked to be searched 1.4% of the time. Is there significance to the fact that Black drivers are 1.5 times more likely to be subject to a consent search than white people?

Also, as related to the issue that supposedly people driving into Portland from surrounding areas disrupts census data figures, the Report shows that Portland suburbs of Gresham (5%), Vancouver, WA (3%), Beaverton (2%), Tigard (2%) and Lake Oswego (1%) all have lower relative Black populations than Portland.

January, 2024
Also in PPR #91

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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