Citizens’ board says racial profiling review wasn’t thorough

Keith Paul

Friday, March 16, 2001 | 11:58 a.m.

The Metro Police Citizen Review Board has claimed the department's internal affairs detectives didn't do a thorough review of a complaint of racial profiling and an illegal search and sent the case back for further investigation.

"The initial (internal affairs) investigation failed to determine the identities of the officers accused," said Andrea Beckman, executive director of the board. "The panel was concerned that it was not possible to figure out who these officers were."

The decision of the screening panel was made Wednesday but was not released until this morning as per the board's policy.

Internal affairs detectives interviewed several officers who were in the area at the time the man was stopped, but no officer claimed to be involved or remembered the incident. A photo array of officers was shown to the complainant, who was unable to pick out the officers who he claimed stopped him.

The man claims he was stopped for no reason other than he was black. He also complained the officers asked if they could search his car and, when he said no, they searched it anyway.

The board's screening panel reviewed six other cases with four of the cases dismissed because there was "insufficient merit" to sustain further review by a hearing panel, Beckman said.

A complaint of discrimination and discourtesy was forwarded to internal affairs for an investigation since the allegations had never been made to the department.

The screening panel on the final case agreed with an internal affairs investigation that exonerated an officer of any misconduct. Details of the complaint were not released.