The Vanguard has been following the federal class action lawsuit in Antioch that was filed over alleged discriminatory practices involving the treatment of African American Section 8 housing recipients by the Antioch Police Department under Davis’ former Police Chief Jim Hyde.
The suit alleges that upon establishing a special unit in 2006, the Community Action Team (CAT) unit had focused their efforts on targeting Section 8 residents and specifically the majority of their actions have targeted African American families. Those families have been subjected to the frequent searches of their homes often without their consent and a warrant. They argue that this is a pattern of intimidation aimed less at reducing crime and more at intimidation and convincing Section 8 residents to leave.
“There is no question that the City and its police department are targeting Section 8 families, particularly African American recipients… The Police have a deliberate policy of coercion, intimidation and threats that target these Section 8 families and their landlords. The City’s goal is to force these families to move out of town.”
Now Plaintiff’s argue that a new study that they commissioned from criminologist Barry Krisberg, who reviewed data from case discovery documents to determine whether the activities of the Antioch Police Department have a discriminatory impact on Antioch’s African American Section 8 subsidized housing recipients, shows that Antioch indeed disproportionately targeted black Section 8 families.
Dr. Krisberg found that from 2006-2009, CAT activities were focused predominantly upon Section 8 households in general, and on African Americans in particular.
Specifically there were three key findings.
- Although Section 8 households make up only 5% of all Antioch households, and 20% of Antioch rental households, they were the major focus of the CAT. Since about half of Antioch’s Section 8 households are African American, this means the CAT’s focus on Section 8 inevitably had a greater impact upon African Americans.
- The CAT targeted African Americans at an even higher rate than their presence in the Section 8 population. In 2006, for example, while 46% of Antioch’s Section 8 households were African American, 67% of CAT’s Section 8 targets were African American. Over the 2006-2009 period, 68% of CAT section 8 locations of interest were African American.
- Nearly 70% of the Section 8 households that Antioch Police referred to the Housing Authority for revocation of Section 8 status were African American. The Housing Authority only terminated 30% of these cases.
The Plaintiffs argue that Dr. Krisberg’s findings validate the underlying claims of the lawsuit.
The Vanguard spoke to Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund on Friday. According to Seligman this is a crucial finding because the defense has argued that there is no such disproportionate or discriminatory practice. They argue that there is no disparate impact, there is no targeting of African Americans, that they are simply responding to complaints.
The argument becomes clear in the defendant’s opposition to the motion to compel the documents that appear to have been used to generate this report.
The defense argued that there were 359 properties that were designated as Problem Houses by the Community Action Team. Of those 359 properties, only 137 were Section 8 properties. “Of these limited 137 Section 8 properties, an unknown number are African American recipients of Section 8 vouchers, guesstimates of which might be one-third to one-half.”
What this study purports to show is that in fact, African Americans represented not one-third to one-half but 70% of those 137 Section 8 properties. Section 8 properties represented a far larger share of CAT actions than their share of the population.
Furthermore as the researcher points out, this was not a simple targeting of Section 8 households.
He writes:
As I discussed above, if there were no racial disproportionality in the impact of CAT team activities other than that resulting from a targeting of Section 8 households generally, African Americans would be expected to represent almost half of CAT Section 8 households (that is, about the equivalent of their percentage of the total Section 8 population in Antioch). In fact, the data suggests CAT focuses on African-American Section 8 households to an even greater degree than would be expected from the racial composition of Section 8 households.
By way of comparison, in 2006, 45.6% of Section 8 households in Antioch were African American, but they represented 66.7% of CAT Section 8 locations.
The defense can still argue that they were merely responding to complaints and thus have no control over whose house they go. As they argue in the motion, race is not generally noted in most event reports and they would have no way of knowing race until they arrived on the scene.
Mr. Seligman acknowledged that this study does not examine the location of complaints and whether they responded to them or not. That will be a determination and argument made for another time. At this point however, they believe they have compelling and irrefutable scientific evidence to demonstrate at least that there was disparate treatment as a disproportionate number of African Americans were caught up in the CAT program–far more than chance would allow for.
Commentary
When Police Chief Jim Hyde resigned from the city of Davis, the city was rife with turmoil and complaints against the police department. The Buzayan case was the most publicized and notable. However, in February of 2006, a large number of African-American students and faculty, came before the Davis City Council to complain about racial profiling. In May of the same year, several hundred mostly African-American students marched from the Memorial Union on campus to the Davis Police Department.
Chief Hyde more recently drew the ire of his former department when he appeared in an Antioch Independent Magazine and made a range of disparaging remarks that were mostly untrue against his former department, at one point comparing the officers to those in the fictional television comedy Reno 911.
Speaking to a number of people, one of the biggest mistakes that it appears Hyde had made here is that the department has failed to involve the community and the stakeholders in the outcomes in the process that can gain widespread support by the community. The result is antipathy and distrust. It is a problem that we saw in Davis prior to the days when Chief Landy Black was hired and it is a problem that we now see playing out in Woodland and West Sacramento both with the West Sacramento Gang Injunction and the Woodland shooting of Luis Gutierrez.
From our experience in Davis, the problem gets magnified when the Chief begins playing residents against residents. We have documents from 2006 showing how this occurred in Davis and there appears to be a similar pattern occurring in Antioch as well.
Clearly this study, if it proves to be a reliable study, demonstrates one piece of the bigger puzzle of this lawsuit and the rest will have to be played out in front of a jury.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I am not big fan of Hyde, but I think you have to wait and see this whole legal scenario play out before casting judgment. The problem is there could have been more criminal activity coming from the African American community than elsewhere in Antioch – especially if criminal elements used the African American community as a “shield” to hide behind, which often happens in low income housing projects in inner cities. (Is Antioch near a big city, or just a small town not close to a big city?) Drug dealers gravitate towards low income housing, as a way to lure needy youth from poor families into the illicit drug trade and the money it generates.
On the other hand, the LAPD were known for going into minority houses w/o warrants to perform illegal searches. As a result, I believe there were some successful lawsuits in regard to that issue. The Florida police got caught racially profiling cars on freeways, stopping mixed race couples to an extraordinary degree. They had to call a halt to such practices, when public attention was drawn to their questionable tactics. But Florida also has a huge crime problem, as evidenced by a killing spree perpetrated on tourists in rental cars. Drugs were being carried through a certain highway corridor, and was the reason for the questionable stops.
There was a question about racial profiling in airports after 9/11. Was it permissable for law enforcement to profile those passengers that appeared to be from the Middle East? Racial profiling is a tricky issue. On the one hand, if crime appears to be coming from a certain “source”, it makes sense to narrow the search as much as possible, which means some sort of “profiling”. If a serial killer is on the loose, the chances are it is a man, not a woman, so is it discriminatory profiling for law enforcement to place their efforts more towards finding a male suspect?
I suspect (pardon the pun) the problem is that law enforcement does not always use its authority to search and seize for the appropriate reasons. Or sometimes their intentions are good, but to them the “end justifies the means”, no matter what. I often wonder if there is any way to put together some guidelines for this sort of thing, so that “racial profiling” will only happen when absolutely necessary – as in a suspect who fled the scene of the crime was described as a white male, or Afrian American female, or Hispanic youth… then “racial profiling” makes more sense. Perhaps such guidelines already exist. Anyone know?
All of the above discussion notwithstanding, Hyde was most definitely divisive for Davis (he thrived on it), and has shown himself in taking potshots at his own fellow officers in Davis after he left town, to be extremely unprofessional. Landy Black seems to be doing a pretty good job on the other hand, unless someone has experience to the contrary? My experience with the DPD has been exemplary, but I will admit to not being a person of ethnic minority. Sometimes you have to walk in another person’s shoes before you can realize what they go through on a daily basis. I can’t even imagine how devastating it would feel for the police to constantly search my residence, especially unannounced, unless criminal activity were so rampant, the neighborhood needed cleaned up by the use of such drastic measures for everyone’s ultimate safety. It’s a fine line to walk…
Nice reporting in today’s Enterprise: An alleged incident that transpired out of The Hanover apartments. Some good racial I.D. on that one.
How about the incident reportead by The Enterprise at 14th and F st. involving a bicyclist and an identified “black haired latina” in a white Toyota? That’s a pretty broad stroke of the brush! Who’s to say that the alleged perpetrator was not Persian or Pakistani?
Is this the “New Harmony” that this community is striving for?
Deep down the residents of this town are in fear of non-affluent outsiders. Many of them will eventually miss the leadership of a stand up individual like Chief Hyde.
Hyde was not well liked when he left the department in Davis. He’s even less well liked now. Davis is far better off that he’s gone–ask anyone in the department if you don’t believe me.
“Is this the “New Harmony” that this community is striving for?
Deep down the residents of this town are in fear of non-affluent outsiders. Many of them will eventually miss the leadership of a stand up individual like Chief Hyde.”
We have good reason to fear “non-affluent outsiders”, i.e. gangbangers/ drug dealers. However, the town doesn’t seem any less safe since Hyde left and Black took over. In fact, police/community relations seem to have improved a great deal since Hyde has departed. Trashing your former co-workers is just not professional.
I think we have to ask ourselves what evidence there is that providing affordable housing opportunities is going to lead to rampant crime, even more we have to ask ourselves whether tactics such as Hydes are necessary and effective.
Speaking to people in law enforcement, a lot of these problems could be avoided by simple communication between law enforcement and the community. That was a disaster under Hyde both here and in Antioch. The fact that things are better now suggests perhaps a better approach from the current chief.
According to the US census bureau, they make up only 12.8% of the US population and only 6.7% of the CA population. Yet in Antioch they make up 46% of the section 8 housing in the city? What percentage of the jail and prison population do they make up?
[quote]What percentage of the jail and prison population do they make up?
[/quote]Who are “they”?
Marvin, if you are interested in some general stats (which are fairly up to date) about the inmate population in California, check out this site ([url]http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/jtf/JTF_PrisonsJTF.pdf[/url]).
I think we have to ask ourselves what evidence there is that providing affordable housing opportunities is going to lead to rampant crime, even more we have to ask ourselves whether tactics such as Hydes are necessary and effective.
Social Disorganization Theory has been around for a while. Although there is much more to it, several notable social scientists have used it to explain higher crime rates attributable to lower socioeconomic groups. It basically says that when people associate freely and are bound by relationships there is less crime, but the opposite is true when heterogeneous socioeconomic groups coexist but don’t mingle very well. I think our practice of mixing high density housing with low density housing is a counter to social disorganization. However, based on this theory, any significant increase in lower socioeconomic residence is bound to raise crime because, like the poorer Muslims in France, they won’t mix very well with the higher percentage of economically, socially and culturally advanced Davisites.
Mr. Seligman acknowledged that this study does not examine the location of complaints and whether they responded to them or not.
So, are the police biased or are the residents? Quite a big question given that this is another attack on the police.