47% of arrests in city where Castile was killed by police were of African Americans, according to Guardian analysis, but only 6.5% of population is black

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Nearly half of those arrested by police this year in the Minnesota area where a black man was fatally shot during a traffic stop are African American, according to an analysis of records released this week – a vastly disproportionate figure to the area’s small total black population.

As of 3 July, roughly 47% of the arrests made in 2016 by Saint Anthony Village, Minnesota, police are of African Americans, according to a Guardian analysis of the records, and about 38% of the people arrested since 2011 were black.

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The records released by St Anthony officials in response to requests from multiple news outlets following following the death of 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was shot and killed by an officer in the city of Falcon Heights, which contracts with the village for police coverage.

The data could raise questions about whether Castile was subjected to the biases of police officers who pulled him over on 6 July for an alleged broken tail light.

Though the population of the three communities policed by St Anthony is roughly 6.5% African American, the data shows over 12% of citations issued by officers since 2011 have been to black individuals.

The figures could be higher, as some arrests and traffic citations listed in the records don’t mention an individual’s race. The village’s attorney said race wasn’t included when officers didn’t record it in an incident report. The records also show:

Total annual citations issued by St Anthony police to African Americans nearly doubled between 2011 and 2015

Total annual arrests of black individuals jumped about 20% from 2011 to 2015

Police in 2015 issued roughly 25% more total traffic citations, compared with 2011 figures

Castile, a longtime school cafeteria worker, was no stranger to law enforcement. Indeed, state court records show that, since 2002, he was pulled over at least 50 times – almost three times a year. He was cited for several dozen minor traffic offenses, records show, but over half the violations he received were later dismissed.

As Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, live-streamed in the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Facebook, she stated that Castile complied with officer Jeronimo Yanez’s requests for identification.

“The officer said, ‘Don’t move,”’ Reynolds said in the video. “As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times.” The attorney for Yanez, who is Latino, has said the officer was reacting to the presence of a gun, not Castile’s race.

Myron Orfield, a professor who has studied racial profiling with the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the St Anthony data was “consistent with the pattern of racial profiling”, however, additional records were needed to say for sure.

In part, Orfield said, it depended on the demographic breakdown of the driving population in the area.

“But the fact there seems to be a disparate impact of the numbers is consistent with the patterns for profiling,” he told the Guardian. Orfield co-authored a study in 2003 for the Minnesota legislature on racial profiling that analyzed information provided by 65 law enforcement agencies in the state, and found racial and ethnic biases played a role in traffic stop practices.

St Anthony didn’t participate, Orfield said, adding that suburbs surrounding the village had “pretty bad profiling”.

“You could draw an inference for that one of the reasons [St Anthony] didn’t participate is they had a bad problem with profiling,” he said.

St Anthony’s police chief, Jon Mangseth, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Across the US, black motorists are more likely to be pulled over than white individuals, according to a US bureau of justice statistics study that reviewed 2011 data. The report found 13% of black motorists were pulled over in a traffic stop during their last contact with police, compared with 10% of white drivers.

Only 2% of white drivers were searched during a traffic stop, the report said, whereas 6% of black drivers were stopped and searched. The report also found 68% of black motorists believed the traffic stops were legitimate, compared with 84% of white drivers.

St Anthony’s attorney said that additional records related to the shooting – including narrative reports, and audio files – have been turned over to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is handling the investigation.

The attorney added that additional data for traffic violations is being assembled and will be provided to news outlets “as soon as practicable”.