NCJ Number
165882
Date Published
1995
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This paper provides a list of incidents to support its claim that police in California are stopping young Asians and other people of color and/or taking their photos just because of their age, color, and hip-hop clothing, and efforts to address such police abuses are also reported.
Abstract
In one of the incidents cited, Garden Grove police illegally detained and photographed three Southeast Asian girls waiting by a pay phone for a call; the girls had on baggy pants. In another incident, eight Asian youths having a barbecue at Heisler Park in Laguna Beach were rounded up by police and individually and collectively photographed just because of an earlier, unrelated incident that involved some other Asians in the park. In November 1993, the Alliance Working for Asian Rights and Empowerment (AWARE) met with the Garden Grove police chief, who disclosed at that time that information from field interviews with suspected gang members is fed into the GREAT gang tracking computer used by all Orange County police departments and by other police agencies in the Southland. AWARE surveyed Orange County police departments and found all responding departments continuing to justify field detentions and photography. In November 1993, a State appellate court in California ruled that such detentions and photography were unconstitutional; however, police refuse to obey this ruling. In Philadelphia, photo sweeps that targeted Asian- Americans, especially Southeast Asians, outraged the Asian- American and civil liberties communities. After pressure from Asian Americans United and other community groups, the police agreed to stop any photographing or detaining of people unless it is in connection with a specific criminal investigation.