There鈥檚 a section in a recently settled racial discrimination lawsuit against 50度灰视频 County that tells an important story. The lawsuit was filed by Millicent Williams, a 64-year-old Black woman who, driving home after visiting her son in the hospital, was pulled over near Westport Plaza in 2019 for Driving While Black. Without cause, a police officer treated her harshly, searched her vehicle and purse while she was terrified and handcuffed on the side of the road. Williams, the wife of a retired police officer, was eventually let go with no charges.
Represented by attorneys and Dan Kolde, Williams recently settled her federal civil rights lawsuit against the county for $305,000. Here鈥檚 what she mentioned in her petition that should still send shivers down the backs of Missourians:
鈥淚n 2017, the Missouri NAACP issued a 鈥榯ravel advisory鈥 warning African-American motorists to be careful while in Missouri because of the danger that their civil rights would not be respected during traffic stops.鈥
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I called Rod Chapel, the president of the Missouri NAACP, this week to ask him if that travel advisory is still in effect. It is. Chapel first announced the advisory during an Urban League gathering in 50度灰视频; and while it didn鈥檛 get quite the national attention the recent NAACP travel advisory for Florida received, it鈥檚 based on much of the same background, from the consistent racial profiling in traffic stops, to disparate searches like the one that happened to Williams, to legislation that makes it easier to discriminate, and high-profile deaths of Black men in some suspicious rural incidents.
Just last week, the annual traffic stops report produced by the Missouri Attorney General hit with the same thud it normally does, like an old phone book landing on the doorstep and the resident of the house looking outside confused, and wondering: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that?鈥
For 23 years now, the report has shown the same thing, the thing Williams experienced in 50度灰视频, the thing every Black adult I know has experienced at one point in their lives: Black people are significantly more likely to be pulled over by police in Missouri than white people. Worse, they are more likely to be searched even though the statistics say white drivers, as a percentage, are more likely to be carrying illegal contraband.
There was a time when police departments would respond to the report with suggestions that more study was needed. Some of them even promised to look more closely at the numbers. So it was in 50度灰视频 County, where former police Chief Jon Belmar promised the formation of a Bias and Policing Committee to break down the racial profiling numbers and study whether any individual officers had an issue pulling over too many Black drivers.
There were at least two problems, Pedroli found in the process of obtaining evidence in Williams鈥 lawsuit: For years, the committee never met. And to the extent that the department reviewed the underlying racial profiling numbers, they ignored the vast majority of officers with disparities, Pedroli said. The system, he said, was rigged so that an officer who was pulling over a disparate number of Black drivers would not likely be flagged. In fact, the only two officers ever counseled under the policy were singled out for pulling over too many white drivers.
鈥淢s. Williams and so many others have a constitutional right to be left alone and certainly not to be humiliated by those in a position of power and authority,鈥 Pedroli says. 鈥淲ith power comes great responsibility. In this case, the 50度灰视频 County Police Department was ignoring its own responsibility to the U.S. Constitution, and to abide by state law. Ms. Williams always respected and supported the police department. Now, she鈥檚 helping to make it better.鈥
Chapel reads the statewide racial profiling report every year, and while he鈥檚 never shocked by its findings, the fact that some things never change reinforces the idea that the travel advisory needs to stay in effect. Black people need to know that they drive in some jurisdictions in Missouri 鈥 maybe most of them 鈥 at their own risk.
鈥淭hese latest attorney general statistics show that Blacks endure more traffic stops, with awful results,鈥 Chapel says.
Among the most recent numbers:
鈥 Black drivers are stopped at a rate 60% higher than they should be based on their percentage of population.
鈥 Black drivers receive citations in about 58% of their stops; compared to 40% for white drivers.
鈥 With the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the numbers are even worse, with 89% of Black drivers receiving a citation after a stop; compared to 60% for white drivers. Twice as many Black drivers as white drivers are arrested after such traffic stops.
鈥淪topping Black drivers is a practice anticipated by law enforcement in a way reminiscent of when Blacks were forced to carry papers to travel 鈥 before cars were even invented,鈥 Chapel says. 鈥淎 white person can expect to walk away from a traffic stop with little more than a slight delay in their day. Black people know they have to follow the letter of every traffic law and then some or risk death for resisting.鈥
The annual vehicle stops report is a sign that Missouri is still broken, Chapel says. It鈥檚 why the NAACP travel advisory is still in effect, and will be, until lawmakers and police departments do more than pretend to care about the fact that for 23 years Driving While Black has been documented in black and white, and nobody, other than Millicent Williams, perhaps, has done a damn thing about it.