Nassau, Suffolk Cite Training against Racial Profiling

The Nassau and Suffolk police departments said they aggressively work to avoid racial profiling through a medley of training programs and updates for officers.

At Nassau, recruits receive 30 hours of training in the police academy on cultural diversity and ethics, said Det. Lt. Kevin Smith.

"Our people walk away from this training with a better understanding and appreciation of just how diverse Nassau County has become," Smith said.

He added that the department has also tried to monitor itself through a data collection program that requires officers to note the race and ethnicity of motorists they stop on the road. The data, Smith said, are studied periodically to determine whether the department engages in racial profiling.

Suffolk officials also said they train recruits in the academy, and study their own officers' actions, to guard against allowing racial animus to influence law enforcement.

"Last year, for the first time, we completed a pilot program where we collected statistics to help identify a baseline for traffic stops and to red-flag officers who differed significantly from peers when making these stops," said Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy.

"We shared these data with individuals who were above the norm, sought an explanation, and then possibly referred those individuals for additional training," he said.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama's weighing in this week on the July 16 arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who said racism was at the root of his detention, continued to attract some criticism Friday.

James Carver, president of Nassau's Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents the county's rank-and-file officers, said Obama shouldn't have injected his opinion into the case - especially since he'd acknowledged at the beginning he did not know all the facts surrounding the professor's arrest on a disorderly conduct charge.

Carver said it was inappropriate for Obama "to second-guess a police officer who has to make a split-second decision at a scene like this."

However, representatives of black law enforcement organizations stood by the president.

"The president was right to raise the issues," said Marquez Claxton, founder of a new think tank called Black Law Enforcement Alliance.

"What the president did was force us, or at least encourage us, to have a discussion about what role race plays."

And Claxton, a retired NYPD detective, said regardless of what Gates might have said, the officer overreacted. "The police officer has the primary responsibility to de-escalate a situation," Claxton said. "The bottom line is he has to avoid being hooked."

Charles Billups, state chairman of the Grand Council of Guardians, a coalition of black fraternal law enforcement groups, said he was disappointed by Obama's clarification of his remarks. "He used the right words," Billups said. "He shouldn't have pulled back at all."

With Matthew Chayes

By ZACHARY R. DOWDY AND ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
Posted Sunday, July 26, 2009

Related info:
Henry Louis Gates Arrest Report

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