By The Vanguard
CANTON, MI – The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) this week released its report, “Lifting the Veil on Racial Profiling in Ferndale”—detailing an investigation into the city of Ferndale’s Police Department’s policing practices along the Eight Mile Road border it shares with the city of Detroit.
CAIR-MI, a local chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit against the city of Ferndale in 2021 “after an African-American Muslim woman was stopped by Ferndale Police Department while traveling along Eight Mile Road inside the city of Detroit and subsequently arrested and forcibly stripped of her hijab for a booking photo.”
CAIR-MI said it raised concerns about the city of Ferndale Police Department’s pattern and practice of “patrolling 8 Mile Road inside the city inappropriately and about the disparity found on Ferndale’s Transparency Dashboard related to the percentage of stops and arrests by the Ferndale Police of African-Americans in light of the small number of African-Americans living in that city.”
Because of these concerns, CAIR-MI said it conducted an investigation into the “seemingly disproportionate impact of Ferndale Police’s practices on individuals of color utilizing documents obtained pursuant to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as well as information publicly available on Ferndale’s Transparency Dashboard.”
At a press conference this week, CAIR-MI presented the findings of the two-year investigation, and the department was called out for “predatory policing” after an alarming study reveals a large racial disparity among Ferndale tickets and arrests, said CBS Detroit.
“There is a disproportionate amount of African-Americans who are stopped by the Ferndale Police Department, given citations, as well as arrest, and a significant portion of these motorists don’t even drive to Ferndale. They are actually driving through the city of Detroit going eastbound,” CAIR Michigan executive director Dawud Walid said.
The report noted that in 2021, 86 percent of arrests and 84 percent of traffic tickets issued by Ferndale police along Eight Mile Road are drivers who are Black, even though only 6.3% of people who live in Ferndale are Black.
“The City of Ferndale Police Department are treating drivers inside the City of Detroit differently than the City of Ferndale,” CAIR staff attorney Amy Doukoure said, according to CBS Detroit, adding the study showed 11 percent of tickets issued between Jan. 1, 2021, and Oct. 31, 2021, were on the Detroit side of Eight Mile Road, and 80 percent of all traffic stops made by Ferndale police outside their own city were in Detroit.
“We are not talking about active criminal activity, for which the Ferndale police were stopping people. We are talking about motorists driving down the road, and we are talking about non-violent offenses,” Walid told CBS Detroit.
Walid charged, said the report, “this is not the first time CAIR Michigan has found racial disparities among minority and/or Black drivers,” adding the “most recent report was sparked after a Black Muslim woman accused Ferndale officers of forcing her to remove her hijab for a booking photo in October of 2021.”
Since then, Walid maintains CAIR has “worked around the clock over the last two years collecting information to support their report. He says anyone who has any doubts about it should read it.
“The statistics don’t lie, Ferndale. The statistics do not lie about who’s getting pulled, where they getting pulled at, who doesn’t get pulled, what are the population demographics of Ferndale. Black people are not more prone to criminality than white folks. You cannot tell someone driving down the street whether their license is suspended or not,” Walid argued.
CAIR-MI is calling on the Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation.
According to CAIR, Helana Bowe was sitting at a traffic light on Eight Mile when she was stopped by Ferndale police over an expired license plate tag. It was then that she reportedly told officers she had a taser after being mugged earlier in the year.
She was then, according to CAIR, “taken into custody and transported to the Ferndale Police Department where they say she was cross-gender searched by a male officer and then forced to remove her hijab for a booking photograph in front of a male officer.”
“By failing to formally respond to our concerns raised on behalf of our client’s civil rights having been violated, we were left with no other option but to sue the Ferndale Police,” said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid in a press release.
He added, “Though the city touts itself as being a municipality of diversity and inclusion, it appears that its police department is not serious about this claim when it comes to Muslims.”
7 Action News said the City of Ferndale responded, saying “they are unable to provide additional comment on this or any other pending or ongoing/open legal matters.” They did add that “the City’s Racial Equity Action Team convened earlier this month and identified an organization with which to pursue an organization-wide training. With approval by the City Manager, the Team is seeking a proposal and expects to present the information to City Council in November.”
