Police racial profiling debate grows in 
Oak Park with forums tonight and last night

By ERIC LINDEN

If the Oak Park Police Department isn't engaging in racial profiling,
then it definitely has other problems that are causing not a few African
Americans and other black residents to protest what they believe are
racially insensitive practices in the village.

"Personally, I believe racial profiling does occur, but not in this
organization," Oak Park Police Chief Joseph Mendrick said during a June
6 forum held on the subject by the APPLE, the African Americans for
Purposeful Leadership in Education parents group in Oak Park.

Another public racial profiling discussion was scheduled for tonight,
April 7, at the monthly meeting of Black-White Dialogue, which also
discussed the matter at its meeting last month. Black-White Dialogue
meets the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the main branch of
the Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake St.

But at the APPLE forum, Mendrick, in the face of criticism from APPLE
members and others attending the meeting at Oak Park and River Forest
High School, also admitted the issue is a concern for the department
that Mendrick has served for 35 years in every rank from patrol officer
to chief of police.

"We are not perfect," Mendrick kept saying over and over to the
relatively small audience at the Tuesday racial profiling forum in the
high school's second-floor faculty dining room. "Yes," the chief finally
added at the end of introductory remarks on the subject. "it's an issue.
It's something we monitor closely."

And how closely was open to question at the forum.

If racial profiling does not happen, audience members wondered how it
occurs that a middle-aged black man has a gun drawn on him after
hurrying home from the store, that a young black adult has been stopped
for running home during the rain and that blacks near the border with
Chicago at Austin Boulevard are detained often, among other stories.

Whatever the cases, Mendrick said the incidents are not racial profiling
and he implored residents with such complaints to seek redress before
several venues within the Oak Park Police Department and the village
government.

Backing up Mendrick's contentions Tuesday were two members of the Police
Department's supervisory staff, both of them black. Commander Keenan
Williams is an attorney, the department's patrol commander and the
author of both the department's racial diversity policy and its May 1
General Order against racial profiling. Sgt. Jacques Conway is the
resource officer at Oak Park and River Forest High School, an ordained
minister and the Police Department's chaplain and works in several areas
with youth in the community.

"It would be hard to believe that our chief of patrol would allow racial
profiling in the organization," Mendrick said of Williams.

If incidents like the stop in the rain occur for no justifiable reason,
Mendrick said his officers "shouldn't be doing that" and "that officer's
in trouble." As urged by Walter Perkins, president of the NAACP Oak Park
branch, Mendrick at the forum said he could support current legislation
in the U.S. House aimed at striking down racial profiling. But mostly,
Mendrick and the other officials present--also including Village Trustee
Carolyn Hodge-West--continuously encouraged residents to make complaints
to any of the following organizations.

* The Citizens Police Oversight Committee. This volunteer citizens
committee investigates all major and referred complaints against police
officers.

* The village manager's office. The village manager, the only village
government employee named by the elected village board, works to enact
policies set by the village board.

* The Human Relations Department. Formerly the Personnel Department in
village government.

* The village board's Public Safety Committee. Three trustees on the
seven-member village board specifically examine issues involving the
Police and Fire Departments.

* The Community Services Department. Formerly the Community Relations
Department, Community Services also works to smooth and address a wide
variety of issues in Oak Park.

Mendrick said the police in a typical year now receive about 54,000
calls for service in a year, and only about 50 complaints for officers'
conduct are filed with the police or with those agencies. The officials
at the APPLE forum said most of the complaints come because residents
have complaints with officers' attitudes or lack of courtesy. Mendrick
said the department normally dismisses, for various reasons including
these, "two or three officers a year."

Seeking to deflect national and regional racial profiling data presented
at the APPLE forum, Mendrick asked APPLE members to judge the Oak Park
Police Department only on its record. He said recent accusations of
racial profiling in north suburban Mount Prospect and Highland Park and
in west suburban Westchester should not be used to judge Oak Park.

"No two police departments are the same," Mendrick said. "There are
policies, orders, rules and regulations that we have that are different
in (for example, the police departments in) Berwyn, Chicago or River
Forest. ... You can't compare us to anybody else (on other
departments)."

The chief said officers in every department have the same job of
enforcing the law, and in addition to the policies and rules that govern
them, the style used in carrying out their duties also differs. "It's
how you do it; it's how you enforce the law," Mendrick said.

Conway also chalked up disparate police performance to differences in
how departments operate. He said some other police departments have
traffic ticket quotas and other mandated performance measures that can
encourage racial profiling.

"Oak Park does not have quotas," Conway said, adding later that some
officers in other police departments "have a lot of time sitting around
looking" to make arrests to meet performance standards. By contrast,
said Conway, who maintained he recently was a victim of racial profiling
by police in River Forest, Oak Park officers perform community service
tasks throughout the community. He said that service helps to mitigate
against racial profiling.

The remarks by Mendrick, Williams and Conway came in response to
questions submitted by APPLE members and relayed publicly by the forum's
moderator, Oak Parker Theodoric Manley, a sociology professor at DePaul
University in Chicago. APPLE co-president Stanley Buford said the
school-related group wanted to conduct the forum on a topic of expressed
concern by APPLE members. And the officials' forum answers did not
immediately convince the APPLE members and some others present that
racial profiling is absent from Oak Park.

Oak Parker Carl Spight, a former APPLE president, said police need to
gather more data about police stops to get rid of racial profiling.
"There's a lot of statistical issues," said Spight, who also said more
data could tell the Oak Park department how successful it has been in
stopping what he called "the stuff of racial profiling."

"What you say is entirely correct," said Mendrick. He said his
department only recently has begun to gather such data, after previously
being blocked from doing so by the Clerk of the Cook County Circuit
Court, where traffic tickets are processed.

Said Martha Brock of Oak Park, gathering data is even more necessary
because not enough citizen complaints are made to police or the other
authorities, so Oak Park really cannot have a firm handle on the true
extent of racial profiling in the village. Mendrick did not disagree.

"There is no assurance that way, but we do have accountability,"
Mendrick said, referring to the various local agencies set up to provide
police oversight. "I have doubts. There are a lot of bad police
officers, but there's a lot of good ones. ... We try to keep on top of
our officers."

"Whether we like it or not, there's profiling in Oak Park," said Robert
Milstein, a former member of the Citizen Police Oversight Committee.
Milstein called for "open hearings on the issue of profiling."

Mendrick said police legally can stop residents for only two reasons: if
there is "reasonable suspicion" of a crime and if there is "probable
cause" that a specific subject might have committed a crime. Again, the
police officials said, if residents believe those two reasons have been
violated, then they should complain to one of the police oversight
agencies.

And that point led into the seemingly endless debate over even the
legitimate street stops of black residents in Oak Park. The debate is
current and dates back many years, at least to the late 1980s and early
1990s. At that time, the village board reacted to complaints about
police stops of blacks and other race-related matters by appointing a
citizen task force that ultimately recommended and got passed several
reforms aimed at improving the performance in race-related matters of
the Oak Park Police Department.

Another issue from a decade ago and tossed around again at the APPLE
forum is how Oak Park residents want the laws enforced. While some
residents bemoan frequent street stops by police, others want speeding
motorists and other residents detained and arrested more often in Oak
Park. Further, officials said, it is often residents and not police
officers who request that young black males be detained by
police--simply for reasons of their race.

"We have citizen profiling in Oak Park," Spight said.

"I agree with you that people can--and do--use us for their own personal
(agendas)," Mendrick answered. "We try to train officers to notice that,
but it's very hard to filter out."

Another, and separate, reform occurred on May 1 this year, when the
Police Department enacted a General Order written by Williams against
racial profiling., which is defined in that General Order as "the act or
series of acts in which a particular person or group is subjected to an
unlawful deprivation of their liberties under law, by enforcement
officer, solely on the basis of such person's real or perceived race,
ethnicity or national origin."

Ojo Osaigbobo, vice president of APPLE, said Oak Park has improved in
the area of police race relations since he moved to the village 17 years
ago, but still must make further steps.

Williams said the department always is working to improve, currently by
doing such things as teaching officers on community outreach,
interaction with residents and other programs. Mendrick said the
department always wants to improve especially in ending the suspicions
of racial profiling.

"I would not be a member of an organization that did not treat people
fairly," Mendrick said. "I would quit."