[vta]

URL: https://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n329/a01.html
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Author: Ryan Sabalow

NORTH STATE DRUG AGENTS ACCUSED OF TARGETING HISPANICS

A north state drug enforcement team is being accused of singling out Hispanics and other minorities by pulling them over on Interstate 5 for no reason other than their ethnicity - a claim that could thrust Shasta County into a heated national debate over racial profiling.

In court documents filed this week, the Shasta County Public Defender's Office alleges that for years, deputies working as part of the North State Initiative California Multi-Jurisdictional Methamphetamine Enforcement Team ( Cal-MMET ) specifically targeted Hispanic drivers suspected of hauling cash and drugs along I-5.

"As a result, many innocent Hispanics are being detained and having their constitutional rights violated, including the right to travel," Mike Horan, the senior deputy public defender, wrote in the motion filed in Shasta County Superior Court. "There is little doubt that people are being targeted prior to being stopped based on their appearance..."

Sheriff's Capt. Jeff Foster, the north state's Cal-MMET leader up until earlier this month, denied the allegations, saying drug agents don't target suspects based on race. The drug team's statistics show that there's no particular ethnicity being targeted, he said.

"Those accusations are exactly that, they're accusations, which are unsubstantiated," he said today.

Horan said in the motion that he's tracked 75 arrests of suspected drug runners stopped on Interstate 5 by CAL-MMET in recent years. Fifty-five of them - or around 75 percent - were Hispanics, Horan said.

Horan notes that of the total number of suspects the Shasta County Sheriff's Office arrests in a given year, usually only around 6 percent of them are Hispanic, and only about 36 percent of the state's population is Hispanic.

Horan said that the numbers correspond with documents he's gathered and officers' testimony. That shows it's clear that clear drug agents are racially profiling, he said. In a statement, Horan called the actions "discriminatory and unconstitutional."

Horan's accusations coincide with a heated national debate over racial profiling. Arizona lawmakers last week passed a bill to crack down on illegal immigration that has drawn protests and legal challenges across the nation from civil rights advocates who say it will lead to Hispanics targeted because of their ethnicity.

Horan's motion is filed on behalf of Saul Arais Guzman, a 25-year-old Portland, Ore., man who was arrested in August on Interstate 5 on suspicion of running drugs.

Horan said at least 10 other defendants arrested in Shasta County have joined the motion, and the Federal Public Defender's Office in Sacramento is planning to join as well.

The attorneys hope a judge will dismiss their clients' cases, since racial profiling falls under the category of "selective prosecution," which courts have ruled unconstitutional since the 1970s.

Horan's motion contends that drug agents patrol the freeway north of Redding targeting Hispanic drivers and their passengers who match a profile of a suspected drug runner, usually a young Hispanic man driving a newer, nondescript vehicle.

A deputy then follows them, until they are spotted making a minor traffic infraction, and the deputy pulls the driver over.

Once on the side of the road, the drug agent who made the stop orders the suspect out of the car. Within minutes, more deputies arrive with a narcotic-sniffing dog, and the vehicle is searched, the motion alleges.

In January 2010, the Federal Public Defender also hired a private investigator who spent 11 days on I-5 watching the drug agents at work.

The investigator watched the agents make 22 traffic stops between the Pine Grove exit in Shasta Lake and Bridge Bay on Lake Shasta. Of those stops, 17 were of Hispanic drivers, 13 of whom had their cars searched. The rests of the searches were of cars driven by blacks or that had black passengers.

The only white driver who was pulled over wasn't searched, according to Horan's motion.

Foster said he wasn't surprised to learn the defense had hired a private investigator.

"It tells you the case is so tight, this is the best thing they can do is look for minor issues," he said.

Those who aren't found to be in possession of drugs or a traffic citation are freed and issued a written warning, Horan said.

The warnings apparently are drafted by the Cal-MMET office, Horan alleges, and there's no legal reason for them to be issued.

Horan alleges the citations, which Cal-MMET contends aren't public documents, are used to create a database of Hispanic drivers.

"The ( Cal-MMET ) program is not paying three, four or five deputies, some on overtime, and a police canine to sit on I-5 to remind citizens of the provision and importance of traffic laws," he said.

Horan notes that in a year-long period, the three CAL-MMET drug agents pulling over suspects on I-5 issued only four actual traffic citations, but pulled over dozens of drivers in supposed traffic stops.

Agents are trained in accordance with national standards taught to other regional drug task forces, Foster said.

Foster said his drug agents have nothing to hide, and the media is welcome go on ride-alongs with the drug agents to see just what they do.

"That invitation is always open," he said.

Last year, the north state Cal-MMET officers made 65 arrests and seized more than 70 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 461 pounds of processed marijuana, 6 pounds of pseudoephedrine, which is used to manufacture methamphetamine, more than 120 pounds of cocaine and a third of a pound of heroin.

The five-county enforcement team also seized more than $2.8 million in cash and $120,163 in personal property. Of that total, at least $1.8 million in cash was seized in three busts along I-5 near Redding.

Under federal and state asset forfeiture programs, agencies that seize the funds can receive up to 80 percent of the cash back, which can be used to pay for officers' salaries. But the asset forfeiture rules mandate that the money can't be used to pay for more drug agents.

The sheriff's office had to cut funding for 45 employee positions last summer, and the department has stepped up training on how to spot alleged drug and loot haulers.

But Sheriff Tom Bosenko has said his office isn't aggressively trying find asset forfeiture money to boost the department's budget.

[almostoverit]

ummm isn't it great it is those that have "been arrested" and are now hoping to ave "their charges dropped". Fkin classic. It's not the ones who have been pulled over and committed no crime, it's the ones wo have been arrested bitching. Good to kow our public defeders are here to work so ard for us

[DoobieDuck]

VTA thanks for posting this story..DD