The Durham Police Department has
come under fire from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Durham
Fostering Alternatives to Drug Enforcement Coalition following claims of racial
profiling and unethically paying informants.
The SCSJ and Durham FADE
Coalition have unearthed evidence that the DPD pays unconstitutional conviction
bonuses to undercover informants in drug cases, creates license checkpoints for
drug interdiction and uses federal grant money to fund undercover marijuana
buys in black neighborhoods.
Assistant Chief of Police Jon
Peter denied the accusations that the department racially profiles drug arrests
after two attorneys produced documents that marijuana arrests have increased 70
percent since Police Chief Jose Lopez took office, with the vast majority of
those arrested being black.
"Durham really stood out
like a sore thumb. It had one of the largest racial disparities in the state,
with respect to African American drivers," said Ian Mance, a Soros Justice
Fellow and civil rights attorney from SCSJ who compiled the evidence.
He noted that SCSJ uploaded
search data from the State Bureau of Investigation database. From a total of
more that 15 million recorded traffic stops, he said it was clear that Durham
had an abnormal stop practice, with a very high rate of stopping African
American drivers.
Following this red flag that
DPD's practices fell outside of the norm, the SCSJ began investigating more of
the department records.
One of the most disturbing
finds, Mance said, was that the department pays secret cash rewards to drug
informants based on the effectiveness of their testimonies or cooperation.
Although it is DPD's policy to
pay informants for working on these higher level cases, an official statement
maintained that the amount of these bonuses does not depend on if a conviction
is achieved.
"The Durham Police
Department denies any unethical or illegal activity as it relates to the paying
of bonuses to confidential informants," the statement read. "The
Police Department has never paid for convictions, only cooperation through case
completion."
In a memo obtained by The
Chronicle from Peter to Chief Assistant District Attorney Roger Echols dated
Feb. 18, he noted that it is a common law enforcement practice nationally to
not pay confidential informants until after trials are concluded.
"I have no concerns about
there being integrity issues related to bonus payments for [confidential
informants] after case completion," the memo stated.
The department is asking their
police attorney to review practices to ensure that there are no procedural or
legal issues in how they handle informants and their payment.
"They haven't had a lot of
time to respond. We threw a lot of information at them in a very short period
of time. I want to give them the opportunity to review the information and do
their own investigation before we do anything further," Mance said.
A June 2012 study written by
Frank Baumgartner—Richard J. Richardson Professor of political science—alleged
racial disparities in traffic stops, searches and arrests in Durham. In the
study, he reported that in Durham county, black drivers were 162 percent more
likely to be stopped for a seat belt violation than a white driver. The study
also found that blacks are 77 percent more likely than whites to be searched at
a traffic stop.
