Rev. Jonalu Johnstone addresses the Riley County Law Board Monday afternoon. (Staff photo by Brady Bauman)
Manhattan citizen Johnathan Cole was one of many to address the Riley County Law Board inside Manhattan’s City Hall Monday afternoon.
Marijuana and perceived racial bias in the policing of it dominated the meeting.
“It’s not the fact that the crime is happening,” Cole, a young white male said. “It’s the fact that the stops and arrests are increasing significantly for people of color. And that’s the issue.”
Law board member and Riley County commissioner, Marvin Rodriguez, answered Cole’s remarks.
“Well sir, I have lots of black friends,” Rodriguez began. “They’ve never been stopped.”
Laughter mixed with uncomfortable groans filled the room, but Rodriguez double-downed.
(Graph courtesy The Manhattan/Riley County Coalition for Equal Justice)
“They’ve never been stopped,” he reiterated.
“That’s tokenism,” Cole responded. “That is tokenism.”
“That’s not,” Rodriquez responded before struggling on what to say next.
“Let’s not go back and forth individually,” Board Chair Craig Beardsley interrupted. “Thank you for your statement.”
According to statistics brought to the board by the Manhattan-Riley County Coalition For Equal Justice, black citizens in Riley County are over four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white ones.
“I want to be clear we do not view Riley County as a Ferguson, Missouri, where police deliberately misused power and racial imbalance was blatant,” said Rev. Jonalu Johnstone, who made opening remarks on behalf of the group. Johnstone is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan.
“What we recognize, though,” she continued, “is that there are patterns deeply woven into American society that increase the probability of arrest and prosecution for people who are black, over that for people who are white. And whatever the source of these patterns, they’re wrong. And we have a social and moral obligation to raise questions, and to work to end the biases sown into the fabric of our culture.”
Johnstone was joined by John Exdell, the chair of the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice, who briefed the board on their findings, which he said utilized crime reports from the Riley County Police Department, the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports and the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program. Will Chernoff, a K-State Ph.D. student who has a M.S. in statistics, also contributed to the group’s findings, according to Exdell.
Citing a 190-page report done by the American Civil Liberties Union in June 2013 titled, “The War on Marijuana in Black and White,” the group told board members usage rates of marijuana among blacks and whites are roughly equal.
The discussion covered a variety of related issues, including pretextual traffic stops. It lasted nearly three hours with many citizens, law enforcement officials and advocacy group members addressing the board.
Elsa Morgan, an African American woman, mother and grandmother, shared her story about a RCPD traffic stop. She said she was riding with her daughter when they were pulled over just after 6 p.m. one evening.
“We were pulled over by the officers and were told it was tag light on why we were stopped,” she said. “I immediately felt that it wasn’t about a tag light. I felt it was obvious it was a ‘DWB’ — a Driving While Black — with rims and tint.
“I felt like we were stopped because of the tint on our car and they couldn’t see who was in the car, because once we were stopped, and they’d seen that it was myself, my two daughters and my grandson, the tag light was no longer important. They didn’t ask for insurance, she wasn’t given a warning. Once I told them I felt like it was a DWB, the officers went on about their business.
“If it was regarding the tag light and it was that important, then why wasn’t she issued a citation? Why was it no longer important? As I feel, is once they’d seen who was in the car and it wasn’t black males, it was black females, the tag light was no longer an issue.
Morgan also spoke of an instance relating to marijuana concerning white juveniles who she says were stopped by the RCPD.
“One of the male’s fathers is a prominent person up at Manhattan High School,” she said. “They weren’t taken to the Riley County Police Department. They were given rides home.
“I know of other black students who have been caught with marijuana who were immediately arrested and taken to the police department and their parents had to go get them. They were slathered all over the Manhattan Mercury — their names, addresses — that didn’t happen to these three white individuals.
“So there is racial bias going on in Manhattan. I have experienced it. My children have experienced it. So when you say stopping someone for a light being out? That’s a proper stop — for a headlight, a taillight. I think a tag light goes a little further than that.
“So when you stand and say statistics, I was a statistic.”
RCPD Detective Brian Johnson, who is also the president of the department’s Fraternal Order of Police chapter, told the board he shared the concerns of the respective groups and thanked them for starting a dialogue.
“We have a vested interest to insure we’re policing in a fair, equitable way,” Johnson said. “And if not for the discussions raised by the Coalition or individual citizens, that mechanism of accountable or transparency isn’t present, so it is appreciated by the membership of the Fraternal Order of Police and I would go so far as to say it’s appreciated by the officers.
“We don’t want to be engaged in biases policing. We want to be very careful about that. Our ability to effectively police and keep our communities safe and in order is dependent on the public having trust in the agency.”
While Johnson never seemed to outright dispute the statistics brought forth to the board, he expressed concerns with the numbers, calling them “inappropriate and flawed.”
“What we’re looking at is simple proportions,” he added. “However that probability value that was presented at the beginning here was calculated is unclear, but it certainly seems from the variables discussed that it’s being evaluated at a univariate, parametric analysis — meaning, we’re looking at single variable and we’re treating it with frequentist statistical analyses.
“What we have here, though, is a combination of socioeconomic variables, of time variables, location variables, and numerous other variables that aren’t parametric, and they’re not univariate. And I would say that the Bayesian statistical analyses that are being used here are inappropriate, or rather the frequentist variables. So, what we end up with (is that) there’s some numbers being evaluated in a vacuum and not recognizing the real factors that are leading to that, and that’s of concern.”
Johnson said the RCPD can’t ignore calls to service addressing complaints of marijuana smell. In another example, Johnson cited income differences between blacks and whites and how that comes back around to those complaints.
“For decades, whites have made more than blacks,” he said. “If we look at the most recent year, 2012, on average whites make $57,000 (annually), blacks make $33,0000. Well, how does that then play into the disparity in our arrests for marijuana?
“Well, if you have a lower income, you’re most likely to live in a more compact area — or an apartment complex. So, fair to say that there’s a good possibility that the racial composition of compact areas or apartment complexes is made up more of minorities than whites. So, again, when we’re responding to calls for service of ‘I smell the odor of marijuana’ or ‘I’m hearing loud noise’ or any of these other things I’ve mentioned before, unfortunately there is a race correlation between where we’re responding and the racial composition, and that’s going to lead to a disparity in the arrest for one offense or another based on race, which is going to (relate) with that, the arrest then that we make for marijuana that might arise out that situation.”
Law board member and Manhattan city commissioner Mike Dodson suggested members from advocacy groups, the RCPD and three law board members begin meeting to address the issues and compare statistics. He also asked RCPD Director Brad Schoen to further document traffic stops, especially pertaining to initial reasons for such stops.
Law board member Usha Reddi, who is also a Manhattan city commissioner and recent mayor, asked about the legal penalties in the county for marijuana.
“There are a number of things in the ACLU report, which is nexus for Mr. Exdell’s work in this regard, that I disagree with, but there’s some that I do,” Schoen said. “One of those is that we don’t need to be arresting people to take them to jail for marijuana possession — a simple marijuana possession, as opposed to distribution or something like that.
“But it’s been a number of years ago now that we went to the citation model. We write a lot of citations.”
Schoen said the way the FBI classifies its statistics may account for the numbers presented Monday.
“One of the things I think that complicates some of the figures shown earlier, is that when we report those cases to the FBI, both arrests — actual physical custodial arrests, where we take you down to jail and make you post a bond — and citations clear the case, and they clear the case by arrest under UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) rules. So, not all of those numbers they are looking at are actually arrests.”
Vice-chair of the Law Board, Be Stoney, who is the only African American on the seven-person board, said the issues are serious.
“We are experiencing some critical times right now,” she said. “Not only here in Riley County, but as we know in the country, but I want to go back to something Detective Johnson said when he mentioned the RCPD is no longer involved in bias policing.
“Probably not. But when you’re on the experiencing end of it, as Ms. Morgan mentioned, it is bias. Those experiences, we have to understand, we cannot discount because they’re very real — particularly for that person involved. We’re all human. We all have some form biases. We really do. Regardless of what situation we may be in, but when we’re talking about racial/ethnic disparity, bias will be the first thing that comes to mind.”
Stoney also addressed earlier comments made by Rodriguez.
“As for friends from all racial groups, yes, we do have friends from all racial groups,” she said. “Regardless of what identity they are, we all do. It did sound like a bit of tokenism, but we have to be real clear when we say we have ‘friends from…’ that we’re not particularly trying to pick out a group that is often relayed as ‘I have friends from…’ It’s just we all have friends, and we’re concerned about their views as well as our views as well.”
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