The ACLU’s investigation is centered on the Winston- Salem Police Department’s implementation of stationary driver’s license checkpoints.
“Our investigation really started with business owners and citizens complaining about [driver’s license] checkpoints, and then we started hearing similar complaints from people in different parts of the city,” Pinto said.
Complainants expressed concerns to the ACLU that the police department was targeting Latino residents and focusing its efforts almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods in the city.
“We heard that the checkpoints were being conducted consistently in the same intersection — we heard that most often, and we heard that police were waving Caucasian drivers through the checkpoints, and stopping Hispanic drivers,” Pinto said.
The police department issued a letter in response to the ACLU’s concerns about checkpoints. The letter dated Oct. 27 and signed by Chief Scott Cunningham and Public Safety Attorney Lori Sykes, acknowledges the ACLU has been requesting information regarding frequency and location of stationary driver’s license checkpoints since early 2011, but the police department has had difficulty “extracting” the information from its computer system.
In the letter, Cunningham addresses two specific complaints from Latino residents. The ACLU received a complaint from one Latino resident stating that his ethnicity was “the main reason he was stopped, because he was able to observe that all of the drivers detained at the checkpoint were also Latino,” according to the letter.
A separate complaint filed by a Latino resident states that she was stopped at a police checkpoint while Caucasian drivers were waved through by police officers.
“It may have been that the pattern determined for that checkpoint was not to stop every vehicle, but to stop every other vehicle or every third vehicle,” Cunningham stated in response.
The same resident also told the ACLU that she had observed checkpoints at that same intersection almost on a weekly basis in the past year.
State law stipulates that police may designate in advance
a pattern for stopping vehicles during stationary
checkpoints. North Carolina statutes regarding checkpoints
also mandate that “the placement of checkpoints
should be random or statistically indicated, and agencies
shall avoid placing checkpoints repeatedly in the same
location or proximity.”
Cunningham denied the department has conducted more
than 50 checkpoints at any one intersection over the past
year. The chief said he could not say precisely how many
stationary license checks were conducted at a particular intersection
over the past year because the department does
not “maintain separate call types for stationary license
checks and for individual officer license checks” and that
all that data was combined in its computer system.
In response to the ACLU’s request for information,
the department created a separate call type for stationary
license checks beginning June 23. In the Oct. 27 letter,
Cunningham
attached a
breakdown of
all stationary
license checks
in the city
from June 1
to Sept. 30.
Of the 113 stationary
license
checks conducted
during
the fourmonth
period,
more than 30
were set up
in the area of
Waughtown
Street and Vargrave
Street in
the Southeast
Ward.
The Southeast Ward is the most diverse ward in the city. Its population is evenly divided between black, white and Latino residents. Qué Pasa, the Spanish-language newspaper in Winston-Salem, is headquartered at King Plaza Shopping Center just off Waughtown Street. The shopping center caters to the Latino population in the Southeast Ward. In addition to Waughtown Street, Pinto said the ACLU has also received complaints from Winston-Salem residents regarding stationary license checkpoints on Sprague Street and Reynolds Park Road.
Cunningham said he rejects the notion that the department is engaging in biased policing. The chief said there is no evidence to support the ACLU’s conclusion that an officer used “race or ethnicity as the decisive factor for locating checkpoints.” Cunningham said a number of factors go into locating driver’s license checkpoints including visibility for approaching motorists, traffic conditions and the amount of crime in that particular area. The chief added that the police department receives a higher volume of calls in specific areas of the city. Therefore, citizens who live in high crime areas have more contact with police offi cers, which might create the impression that police presence in minority communities is disproportionately higher than in mostly white neighborhoods.
Cunningham cited crime statistics in the area of Sprague Street and Reynolds Park Road versus Buena Vista, an affl uent area in the Northwest Ward. The statistics reveal the department received more than 2,000 calls from residents of the Sprague Street area with 84 violent crimes and 433 property crimes reported during that same four-month period. Reynolds Park Road residents made 317 calls to police with seven violent crimes and 77 property crimes reported, while Buena Vista residents made 85 calls to police with no violent crimes and 41 property crimes reported. “These statistics clearly demonstrate the WSPD’s commitment to applying its resources to those areas most in need of them,” Cunningham said.
The ACLU is continuing its dialogue with the residents of Winston- Salem and the police department regarding the implementation of police checkpoints. The ACLU will host a town-hall meeting on Dec. 10 at 10 a.m. at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem to hear the concerns of residents about police checkpoints. Cunningham did not respond to an email from YES! Weekly inquiring if he was planning on attending the meeting.
“What we’re hoping to see is the Winston-Salem PD change its policy so we have a fairer implementation of checkpoints so they occur evenly among all neighborhoods in Winston-Salem and better documentation of the checkpoints,” Pinto said.
