Racial Profiling Allegations by Decatur Police Brought Before City Commission
Decatur Metro | January 7, 2014 | 9:26 amAs reported by Decaturish from last night’s City Commission meeting…
Decatur Police are investigating allegations of racial profiling by its officers, City Manager Peggy Merriss said during the Jan. 6 City Commission meeting.
Decatur Police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ross said she wasn’t familiar with the investigation when Decaturish.com contacted her for a statement. The alleged incident that prompted the investigation upset commissioners. They apologized to Don Denard, a former city school board member, after he told them he was stopped by officers who were racially profiling him.
Decaturish also has video of Mr. Denard’s remarks and reaction from the Commission.
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This is all so odd to me. My assumption, which may not be correct, is that a neighbor would have called the police (otherwise I would expect for it to be clear that the police saw him leave the house), and, almost always, especially given the length of time of his residency, neighbors know one another. This all sounds so…strange.
I have an acquaintance who has lived for a long time in Winnona Park and is black. He has had multiple experiences of walking near his home and having the police come by because someone was concerned. Many people do not get to know their neighbors, as hard as that is for us gregarious types to understand. Folks have been urged to report anything suspicious. Neighborhoods like Winnona Park are still predominantly whlte. This is a set up for racial profiling, right or wrong.
That I understand, but just seems that at some point, through the years, you have actually “seen” all your neighbors, doesn’t it?
You’d think so. All the more reason that these incidents feel so uncomfortable to my friend. Somehow he is not being seen and recognized as a neighbor.
I’m glad an innocent man decided to refuse to produce ID at the whim of a police officer.
+1
-1. Whim? I don’t think that characterization is even remotely accurate or appropriate. The police were responding to a report of a man leaving a home and not closing the door, not typical behavior for homeowners. Given the number of break-ins in Oakhurst in the last few months, asking for an ID seems entirely appropriate.
You know that comment will lure in all of the “what’s the big deal about being asked to show your ID?” comments, most likely from people who are rarely or never asked to do so.
Papers, please. Show me your papers.
This will be a fun (read; exasperating) thread to read.
Is that an Audi shift knob in your profile pic? Looks like one.
Nope. Wrong country.
I’m sure someone is going to comment about the officer being black, so I’d like to point out in advance that black police officers can and often do practice racial profiling. I’m glad to see that the city government is taking the allegations seriously.
Seems like the police can’t win here. DPD is getting slammed for allegedly not doing enough every time there is a break in, but when an individual leaves a door slightly ajar in a neighborhood that has been riddled with break ins over the past three months and DPD stops the individual, it gets called racial profiling. I would like to think that the officers would have taken the same steps had the individual been white.
+1
Re “I would like to think that the officers would have taken the same steps had the individual been white”: but we know that it’s less likely if the individual had been white because neighbors would probably have been less worried and less likely to call the police. It’s challenging–how to stay on the alert for criminal activity without racial profiling in a community that is say 85% white. My teen son in his usual dark hoodie, basketball shorts, athletic shoes, and reserved (could-be-taken-as-sullen) expression does not worry anyone as he lopes around Decatur because he is white. If he were black, I’ll bet he would. But if he were black and with a white friend in the same male teen get-up, he wouldn’t. Don’t know what to do about this. It feels wrong but what’s to be done?
Agree. Hard to determine where the line is crossed on profiling. Remember profiles are often, but not always based on trends/facts/etc. Also would be interesting to see a breakdown of recent home/car burglaries to see racial demographics of victims and perpetrators.
about 95+% in one, but just for the last five years or more for every report i’ve seen
That’s just it: If all the recent burglaries had been committed by a person matching your son’s description, I imagine the police would more than likely use that description to guide their policing.
With a “for what it is worth” tone, I’ll add that I’m a white male who has been asked for his ID while an officer was checking suspicious activity at my home.
A few years ago during a warm spell in January, I was in my home with the front door wide open mid day/mid week. A police officer came to the door, knocked, and announced himself. When I came to the door and explained why the door was open (getting some fresh air), we had a brief conversation about why he was checking. I was in my workout clothes, making a sandwich, and probably couldn’t have appeared more “at home”, so to speak. But he still checked my ID. I didn’t think anything of it.
I’m adding this because of all the “what if he wasn’t black” and similar insinuations….
+1
Will the new city arborist profile black gum trees?
“He said special investigator, who is white, called for additional officers after seeing him leave his home to go for a walk.”
Why was the act of him leaving a home suspicious enough to go up and check the door which presumably wouldn’t be visibly ajar? If I am reading what Decaturish is saying correctly, a white police officer is the one that started this incident at his home, they sent the black officer to make contact with him. So basically this wasn’t a citizen call in. Feel free to correct me.
I also find it strange that the police spokesperson (not the council) knows nothing about a police investigation, for an incident that happened 3 weeks ago. The department isn’t that big. I’m not saying she’s lying, I just find it very odd.
I was really touched by his statement. He handled his emotions and explanation of the incident far more gracefully than I ever could have.
I don’t know the facts, but I read it differently. I assumed that the white officer was responding to a call from a concerned neighbor, and after arriving, investigating and finding the house open, he requested backup. The black officer was the backup.
I would have assumed that too but for the line about the investigator “seeing” him, which I interpreted to mean through their own two eyes, not through a call in report. Maybe someone can clarify.
I hope this IS clarified, as I interpreted also that it was the special investigator who saw the man leave his home, not a neighbor calling in. I think if it was the special investigator (who are undercover, around town) who prompted the stop, we should know. It would give me hope that it wasn’t neighbors who should know better calling.
“I also find it strange that the police spokesperson (not the council) knows nothing about a police investigation, for an incident that happened 3 weeks ago. The department isn’t that big. I’m not saying she’s lying, I just find it very odd.”
If Mr Denard just wrote the letter (which it seems like since the Mayor hadn’t seen it and he lives right up the street and I’m sure knows Mr Denard), then DPD wouldn’t have had anything to investigate until now.
Letter is dated Dec. 16.
To whom was it addressed and when was it delivered?
As it says in the story, it was addressed to Chief Mike Booker. No idea on when it was delivered, At the meeting, Peggy Merriss said she was told it was being investigated, so we can safely assume it was delivered before the meeting. During the meeting, Mayor Baskett Indicated that the letter was delivered much earlier than the meeting but he did not personally receive it until Jan. 6, after the holidays. It was suggested the holiday schedule delayed his receipt of the letter. The last regular meeting of the City Commission was Dec. 16, according to their calendar. I don’t know what the protocol would be regarding who else received the letter and when. Since it’s the subject of an investigation and commissioners aren’t supposed to meddle in the DPD’s day-to-day operations (if I understand the charter) it’s reasonable to assume that they wouldn’t have received it as soon as the police chief did.
Most African Americans that live in or around City of Decatur have known this for years. When I say this I don’t mean that every single police officer in Decatur racially profiles, just that if you happen to be black and live in or near that area, it’s happened to you more than once.
What IS surprising about this is that Mr. Denard is probably well above the age of 40+. I think it’s good that COD acknowledges this and investigates and hopefully some sensitivity training well correct and problems.
D’accord, on all counts. We’re a small community, and I can’t help but wonder how it is that Mr. Denard’s neighbors still apparently don’t recognize him, even after all the years he’s lived here. SMH.
So, who was the profiler? The neighbor? Or the police?
Here is a copy of Mr. Denard’s presentation at the meeting IN ITS ENTIRETY: http://decaturga.swagit.com/play/01062014-628 (Item VII … his remarks start at about 2 minutes in)
He clearly states that the black police officer who stopped him was sent his way after a call from a “special investigator” who spotted Mr. Denard walking out of his driveway. It was the police, not a neighbor, who profiled him.
I don’t know about the popo, but the city overall could use some racial sensitivity training.
Co-sign.
I work very hard to be equally insensitive to all races.
Ha, ha, my husband claims he is a misanthrope and hence unprejudiced. However, just to link all the threads, he loves trees and thinks that it should be a federal crime to cut one down. (Meanwhile, I view them as potential flying objects that can hit houses and cars without warning.)
I have been stopped a few times while walking in downtown Decatur. One officer saw me walking down church street, crossing commerce and church street. About time I got to Glen lake park, two officers pulled me over,_ and ask me where I was going, I told him up the street, then I ask him why did he stop me, his reply was we want people to be where they are suppose to be, so I ask him, how do you know where people are suppose to be. Then I ask him if he had came down church and ponce,he said yes he had, then I ask him if he had seen all of the drunk white people in front of leon’s in the middle of the street. He then told me to have s good night. The police have changed their profiling to include we have had robberies. A lot of people black and white know they racial profile, but if it doesn’t happen to you, why would you be concern?.
Joel, are you black or white or identify as some other hue? I, personally, am white, and I have had police officers who were rude to me when I asked them for information.
my husband and I, both white, have each been treated rudely and aggressively on separate occassions/when not in each other’s company by one Decatur police officer- Lindsey. This statement isn’t meant to discount any accounts of racial profiling- just to emphasize that at least one Decatur officer needs to improve his interactions with the public in general, regardless of race.
Have you made a complaint?
Should have. I will follow up, thanks for the prompt.
Folks should give a listen to the entirety of Don Denard’s remarks. Two things that have really stayed with me: 1) Mr. Denard had just finished reading “The Presumption of Guilt” by Charles Ogletree and seemed quite taken with it as if he’d only recently begun to contemplate racial profiling and 2) he’s been a City of Decatur resident for 30+ years and this was the first time something like this has ever happened to him. Before anyone misunderstands, I’m not trying to diminish what Mr Denard felt. What I’m wondering is if, while in a nerve rattling situation with several factors to process, he didn’t maybe give too much weight to what he’d recently read and not enough to what he’s always known, and if it may possibly have affected how he experienced it?
Anyway, here’s the link. Click on VII, starts at 2:15 mark:
http://decaturga.swagit.com/play/01062014-628
(As for protocol, DPD reports to Asst City Mgr David Junger. City Mgt decides what’s & when’s of info provided to the Commissioners.)
Or maybe his recent reading prompted him to acknowledge and confront–and invite others to do likewise–the contrast between “what he’s always known” and what he was experiencing right then? I don’t know Mr. Denard personally, but I do know anecdotes related to me over the years by friends who are African American, and I also know the changes I observed in neighborhood dynamics over 15 years living in south Decatur. This whole thing surprises me not at all, which saddens me a lot.
smalltowngal, I can’t tell from what you’ve written if you’ve perhaps misunderstood what I was struggling to convey. In case that might’ve happened and because this is such a powder keg issue– but one very worthy of tackling, let me clarify that “what he’s always known” is what I was hearing Mr. Denard to say about his personal experience of life in Decatur having been a good one up until December 15th, 2013. (Nor, from what Mr. Denard shared, does it seem like he’d heard tales of any incidents before then that had troubled him enough to think,”Hey, what’s going on here??”) I’m not discounting the experiences of anyone, but I do think it’s a good thing for everyone– Mr. Denard too– to give some consideration to everything that might possibly be relevant. Like you, I’ve had a concern or two shared with me over the years. Like it does with you, it stays with me to hear the hurt that’s behind the words. Truth be told, I don’t know how our community or any other will ever completely get past race always lurking somewhere in the background until we all start putting everything up for consideration when we’re trying to make sense of things– including, taking stock of what’s gone into forming our own perceptions.
(My earlier comment w/link somehow snuck thru moderation and turned up before MAD’s did. Yep, entirety of remarks does matter. … betcha DM’s got the ol’ eagle eye going now! :0)
Deanne, I did understand you before, I just don’t agree. Evidently, more than a week passed between the incident and Mr. Denard’s letter to the City, so I’m making the assumption that he took time to reflect on what happened and on his own feelings and thoughts about it, before speaking up.
To the extent this or any other incident represents racial profiling, IMO the root problem isn’t in the police department but in the community as a whole. The cops police us as we demand to be policed. While this needs to be delved into and changes made as needed with respect to policy, protocol, whatever, it’s a golden opportunity for the community to air a difficult issue that too many prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.
I’m pretty sure that an African American old enough to live through the before and after of the civil rights movement has contemplated racial profiling before now. I’m fine with admitting we don’t know the whole story, and I don’t know why the police cheerleaders who constantly turn up here can’t admit that either. I know this is hard to accept, but maybe things do need to change in the police department regarding this and many other things. A staffed police precinct in Oakhurst seems to be wanted, and it wouldn’t hurt to know you could always find an officer near the MARTA entrance either, because no one is saying there isn’t a crime problem here. But stopping citizens going about their daily lives asking them to produce ID is a futile waste of time.
He DESERVES a damn sincere apology and we need to find out WHAT EXACTLY WAS SO GD SUSPICIOUS about him that deserved MANY police officers asking for his ID, the final conclusion need to be PUBLIC. We need to know if it was a call in, or an actual officer that led to this incident. We need to know more about the other eluded to profiling incidents. PROFILING SHOULD NOT BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR POLICE WORK. I have picked up mail from other people’s mailboxes, house sat/dog sat for people, walked through neighborhoods I don’t know taking pictures,and what happened to him has never happened to me, or ever will. I don’t have any white guilt, races issues are what they are, we do have crime issues that are in hibernation over the winter. But what happened to this man, in this incident, is freaking outrageous and anyone should be able to see that.
Thank you for this post–it needed to be said, and you said it well.
“we need to find out WHAT EXACTLY WAS SO GD SUSPICIOUS about him”
That’s what I do not understand. Leaving a back door slightly ajar is not enough, standing alone, to suspect one of burglarly. Moreover, it appears that after leaving the door ajar, he simply walked down the street, with no other indications that he had taken anything or was in a rush to get away.
Nor does he really fit the perp descriptions that had been circulated for other recent Decatur crimes. Yes, he’s black, but he’s also over 50 years old. I think the majority of perp descriptions, if not all, indicated much younger men.
I find it particularly galling that a refusal to produce ID resulted in two additional officers arriving at the scene, which likely made quite a spectacle of this non-event and embarassed Mr. Denard, as it would anyone. Whether or not it was racial profiling, it was overkill. Leaving your back door open and going for a walk should hardly be cause for being subjected to a three-officer custodial interrogation on your own street.
If there were other facts indicating that Denard was acting suspiciously, I might have a differtent opinion. But all we seem to have is a black dude going for a walk who did not completely shut his own door. To my mind, it is perverse to find this indicent as a cause to express sympathy for the police, as opposed to the innocent man who was subjected to completely erroneous suspicion and harassment.
Daydreamer – that’s a whole lot of speculation and conclusion for someone who says we need to know all the facts first. Maybe you should take your own advice.
Yeah, I’m gonna point out that you’re jumping the gun in deciding how it needs to be handled. Your harsh opinion of us who aren’t inclined to assume the worst of the DPD is duly noted.
@Daydreamer
If as you say we ‘don’t know the whole story’. Then how do we know ‘He DESERVES a damn sincere apology’?
Not saying he doesn’t deserve an apology, but like you said we don’t know.
He’s already gotten an apology. I said what he needed was a sincere apology. Pure speculation, but I’m guessing had they not felt something, at the very least, questionable had taken place, they wouldn’t have said a thing. We shall see…
“But stopping citizens going about their daily lives asking them to produce ID is a futile waste of time.”
Just curious, but how were the police supposed to know (i) if he was a citizen or (ii) if he was going about his daily life? Plus, if police can no longer stop someone who seems to just be going about his daily life, how long before the criminals figure that out?
What reason would they have to believe that someone walking a down a street, or a from a house, had no business being there? No one has ever stopped me for looking like I don’t belong somewhere so I’m trying to figure out the motivation for detaining him from carrying on his walk.
Was his bow-tie crooked? Were his penny-loafers scuffed? Was he taking his flat-screen for a walk? What was the visual red-flag about him, that made WHOEVER (citizen or officer) believe that he couldn’t possibly live in the house he was leaving, and on the street he was walking down. This is what we all need to know.
Huh. I guess I’m glad I’ve been out of town and out of the loop. All I’ll say is that, without knowing all the details, we don’t need ALL the details. Middle aged man, regardless of race or any other attributes, leaving his own damn home, does not deserve the treatment that the police have already admitted he got. End of story. And if you disagree, then so be it, but I’ll save my breath by not arguing with you and just be thankful that you did not write our nation’s Constitution.
All this said, I will be back home in Decatur later tonight. I plan to go to Trackside, drink too much to drive home, leave the bar through the front door, which I will leave slightly ajar, and stumble home through downtown. Anyone want to take odds on my white ass being detained and questioned at any point during this process?
Let’s see: I gave you 17 points for the national championship, so I should at least get 500 to 1 on such a long shot as you being detained. No wearing lawyer clothes, though.
Trust me, I never wear lawyer clothes to Trackside.
And congrats on the game even if it wasn’t the blowout you expected. The Vegas books would only give me 10 points but fortunately that was more than enough!
CLOSE THE DOOR!!!