Oakland police monitor sees continued racial disparities

Photo: Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle 2016 A line of police cruisers are seen in the depot at the Oakland...

After more than a decade of federal monitoring, police in Oakland are still showing signs of racial disparities in enforcement, according to the latest report. Officers, it said, were much more likely to stop and search African Americans than whites, but found suspected contraband more often on whites.

The monitor’s report, released Thursday, said Oakland police stopped 15,407 vehicles between mid-November and mid-May. Blacks were at the wheel 57 percent of the time, whites 11 percentand Latinos 21 percent. During the same period, officers stopped 1,858 pedestrians: 69 percent of them black, 10 percent white and 15 percent Latino.

Oakland’s population, according to the 2010 census, was 28 percent black, 34.5 percent white and 25.4 percent Latino.

The report also found that police searched African American motorists and their vehicles in 28 percent of their stops, compared with 5 percent for whites and 14 percent for Latinos. During pedestrian stops, African Americans were searched 48 percent of the time, whites 21 percent and Latinos 34 percent. The figures covered only searches officers chose to conduct, at their discretion, and did not include searches required by law when a suspect was being arrested or was visibly carrying a weapon.

By contrast, the report said, officers were somewhat more likely to find contraband when searching whites than blacks: 48 percent of the time in vehicle searches involving whites, compared with 46 percent for blacks, and 58 percent for searches of white pedestrians, compared with 42 percent for blacks. The figures for Latinos were 48 percent in vehicle searches and 53 percent in pedestrian searches.

Some of the disparity in search rates can be attributed to the fact that African Americans were more likely than whites to be on probation or parole, and thus subject to random police searches without suspicion. But a lawyer in the case that resulted in federal court oversight of the Oakland police said Friday that the numbers still suggested some racial bias in enforcement.

The fact that African Americans are more likely than whites to be searched is “grounds for extreme concern,” said attorney James Chanin. And he said it was “unacceptable” that blacks were searched more often while whites, particularly pedestrians, were more likely to be holding contraband.

On the other hand, Chanin said, “the figures are probably not dramatically different from any other police department.” The Oakland police force, he said, is “a work in progress.”

In fact, San Francisco police showed similar disparities in searches of both African and American and Latino drivers, as compared with whites, according to a recent report by The Chronicle that looked at three years of police records.

Officer Johnna Watson, an Oakland police spokeswoman, said in a statement that the report was based on “information that the Oakland Police Department is collecting so we may make improvements. We are committed to data-driven policing and transparency to help build community trust.”

Oakland police have been under federal court oversight since the 2003 settlement of a suit over illegal searches and detentions by a group of officers known as the Riders. The current court-appointed monitor, Robert Warshaw, has found the department in compliance with a majority of the standards for police conduct and supervision contained in the settlement, but said Thursday that the department remains in only “partial compliance” with standards for vehicle stops, field investigations and detentions.

Warshaw also cited a Stanford University study in June that found racial disparities in traffic stops by Oakland police in a 13-month period in 2013-14. The research team, led by psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, has been holding training workshops for Oakland officers on recognizing and reducing racial bias.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko