Following up on a June Cheat Sheet post and more recent State reports on traffic and pedestrian stops. From the News-Gazette yesterday:
Urbana police pedestrian-stop numbers criticized over racial disparityMore at the full article here. State reports on racial disparity in local police stops available here: pedestrian and traffic.
A community group and some aldermen are questioning why pedestrian-stop numbers reported by the Urbana Police Department for the past two years are so "exaggerated" when compared with other cities.
Police say a broader interpretation of state guidelines for reporting pedestrian stops inflated their numbers.
Interim Chief Bryant Seraphin said officers have taken it as a rule of thumb that if they're wondering whether they should count one, it should be counted, and he and data analyst Melissa Haynes emphasized that not all of the stops in the department's presentation to the council were required to be reported to the state.
The department also found that most of the stops were reactive, and that the demographics closely mirror those of police reports.
But in a separate presentation to the council, Deloris Henry and Belden Fields of C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice took issue with the numbers, saying they disproportionately affect African-Americans.
"The numbers are so similar to other cities, but not with the African-Americans," Fields said. "How does UPD explain this racial disparity when Caucasians outnumber African-Americans?"
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