Preliminary numbers released last week suggested black people were pulled over at four times their representation in the U.S. Census. However, Muir said a misplaced decimal point and old Census data accounted for the discrepancy, and a closer look at the figures shows that stops, warnings and citations are more or less in line with the population.
The 2007 Legislature mandated the counts as a way to prohibit racial profiling, and Muir said the current requirement isn't onerous. Patrol officers simply report race as they finish a call to dispatch.
“We don't approve of profiling based on anything other than behaviors,” Muir said.
A black man named Cleveland McDonald disagreed. He said he has the utmost respect for Missoula police officers, but believes a patrolman issued him a speeding ticket this summer because of his race.
“It just left a real bitter taste in my mouth, the whole situation,” McDonald said.
That stop was one of some 20,596 total traffic stops patrol officers made from July 2007 through June 2008, according to figures released Wednesday by the department. (Race information is missing for 706 stops made early in the year when police were getting used to calling in the information, Muir said. Now the computers make sure it's collected.)
The data by race go as follows:
- Black people made up 0.78 percent of total stops, or 155. Their population in Missoula is 0.4 percent, according to the 2000 Census but 0.69 percent according to the 2007 American Community Survey, a smaller yearly survey conducted by the Census Bureau. Those people were warned 45.81 percent of the time and charged 54.19 percent of the time.
- Asian people made up 0.67 percent of total stops, or 134. Their population in Missoula is 1.2 percent, according to the 2000 Census and 1.56 percent in the 2007 ACS. They were warned 38.81 percent of the time and charged 61.19 percent of the time.
- Caucasian people made up 95.83 percent of total stops, or 19,060. Their population in Missoula is 94.01 percent per the Census and 94.99 percent per the ACS. They were warned 36.11 percent of the time and charged 63.89 percent of the time.
- Native American people made up 1.95 percent of total stops, or 387. Their population is 2.6 percent, according to the Census and 3.41 percent per the ACS. They were warned 35.4 percent of the time and charged 64.6 percent of the time.
- Middle Eastern people made up 0.31 percent of the stops, or 61, but surveys don't cover that group.
- Hispanic people made up less than half a percent - as low as 0.32 percent or as high as 0.45 percent. That's anywhere from 64 to 90 people. The data aren't crystal clear because of the way race is coded, Muir said. Patrol officers code race with a letter, and 26 stops were coded with an “H.” An “H” isn't a code, though, but Muir said some officers may have inadvertently used “H” for Hispanic because a few of the other codes match up with their first letter.
If black people had been warned considerably more often than they were charged, Muir said there might have been cause for concern. But he said the final numbers don't alarm him.
“None of these appear to be statistically significant variations,” Muir said.
Ward 1 Councilman Jason Wiener said he isn't a statistician, but he also cautioned people against taking the numbers as gospel. A small sample size naturally yields some random variation, he said.
“It makes something look innocuous when it's not - or egregious when it's not,” Wiener said.
The numbers tell a story, and McDonald has one of his own. The teacher and umpire said police officers have thankless jobs, but he doesn't buy into the idea that racial profiling doesn't happen in Missoula.
“I'm calling B.S. on that statement,” McDonald said.
McDonald teaches English as a second language in California's Central Valley, and he has worked in Missoula and throughout Montana in the summertime as part of a youth sports program.
This July, a patrol officer wrote him a ticket for going 36 or 37 mph in a 25 mph zone, he said. McDonald, though, said he couldn't have been driving that fast then, and drives within the speed limit anyway.
“I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in years,” he said.
At the time, McDonald was driving down Bancroft Street and had just stopped to let a group of children cross the street near the water park. Less than a block later, an officer pulled him over and asked for his license and registration, he said. Then, he came back for his proof of insurance.
“I said, ‘Did I do anything wrong?' He didn't say anything,” McDonald said.
But the officer came back with a ticket and told McDonald he'd been speeding. McDonald said he knows the speed limit in the area, had been at a standstill in his car maybe even a half-block earlier, and is cautious anyway because he works with children.
“I told my friends, ‘I just got pulled over.' They go, ‘What?' They go, ‘You?' ... They know I don't drive fast,” McDonald said.
Muir said getting a ticket in that area isn't unusual in the least. People speed there all the time, and police hand out plenty of tickets and warnings to go around. And he said sometimes people claim they were stopped because of their ethnicity when in fact they were stopped because they were speeding.
“Stopping violators is not racial profiling,” Muir said.
He estimated the ethnic makeup of the department generally reflects that of Missoula, with a force that's roughly 94 percent Caucasian and 6 percent nonwhite.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at keila.szpaller@missoulian.com.
View a PDF of racial profiling statistics from Missoula police.
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