Study favorable to police criticized

Valerie Miller

Tuesday, March 14, 2000 | 10:49 a.m.

A new study says that police officers who use excessive force are the exception, not the rule, and that police violence against minorities is not widespread.

But a panel on police violence where the study's results were released locally Monday night disagreed forcefully.

"While I believe that most police officers are dedicated professionals who put themselves in harm's way, I don't believe for a minute the notion that it's just a few bad apples on the police force and if we weed them out, we will get to the root of the problem," Gary Peck, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada, said during the forum at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

The study, done by University of Miami sociologist Roger Dunham and Geoffrey Alpert of the University of South Carolina, compared how police officers of different ethnic backgrounds applied force to suspects of their own ethnicity versus suspects of different ethnic groups. It concluded that force was applied relatively evenly among different ethnic groups.

Dunham, who defended the findings at the forum Monday, found that force was applied generally evenly against suspects, regardless of race. In fact, he found, officers used more force against suspects of their own race, which he theorized could be because the officers would not have to fear charges of prejudice.

The study's results come on the heels of two racially charged cases involving excessive force and police brutality in New York.

In February a jury acquitted four New York City policemen of fatally shooting an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, 41 times. The verdict has set off protests and calls for federal charges to be filed against the police for violating Diallo's civil rights.

Earlier this month three white officers in Brooklyn, N.Y., were convicted of conspiring to cover up another officer's role in the 1997 sexual assault and torture of a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima.

Dunham's study met with strong criticism Monday from members of the debate panel, who said the research heavily reflected a police point of view.

Dunham interviewed officers of the Miami-Dade Police Department over a three-year period -- 1996 through 1998. His research was supplemented by data published in a National Institute of Justice report.

"Roger gives the police's point of view, and because of that, this report raises questions about objectivity," Peck said. "It think you have to look at this with a grain of salt."

Panel member Franny Forsman, the federal public defender for Nevada, concurred.

"Why don't you get the perspective of the young black man on the ground with the (police's) knee in his head instead of the police's perspective?" she asked.

Dunham defended his study, saying he had spent nearly eight years before the study interviewing recently arrested suspects on the amount of force used in the arrests.

Metro Police Undersheriff Richard Winget praised his department, saying that Metro only used force in "one-tenth of 1 percent of its contacts with the public last year."

Peck contended that race and economic background play a major role in cases of excessive force and police brutality against the public.

"I believe that race and (social) class play a major role in the problem," he said. "In city after city across the country, minorities allege police abuse them more than white residents."

Peck added that many people are afraid to file a report against the police because of a law in Nevada that makes it a crime to file a false report.

"A lot of people come to us at the ACLU and complain about how they were treated by the police but are afraid to make a police report, fearing it will be used to prosecute them," Peck said.

During the debate, Peck announced plans by the ACLU to challenge that law in court.

Winget, who praised the results of Dunham's study, said he hopes the Metro civilian review board that is being organized will make people more comfortable in coming forward with complaints about police.

"Now they can go to the review board and make a complaint if they are afraid to report it to the police," he said.

Winget added that an attorney will be selected by May as the director of the review board, and he hoped to have the panel together a few months after that.

Peck is taking a wait-and-see attitude on the effect the board will have.

"I'm pleased that the board is being formed," Peck said, pausing to choose his words carefully. "Let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic."

Valerie Miller is a reporter for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2319 or by e-mail at valerie@lasvegassun.com