An ad-hoc committee formed by the Riley County Law Board found no pattern of racial bias by RCPD in their study of marijuana arrests in the county. They presented their findings at the Law Board’s meeting Monday.
The committee was formed in 2017 after residents and members of the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice rose concerns over the fact that in 2014 and 2015, 25 percent of those arrested in Riley County for marijuana following a traffic stop were African American despite only making up about 5.5 percent of the population.
The committee was made up of Law Board members including current Manhattan Mayor Mike Dodson, Riley County Commission Chair Marvin Rodriguez and Kansas State professor Dr. BeEtta Stoney. Other members included RCPD Director Brad Schoen, RCPD Captain Josh Kyle, Detective Brian Johnson representing the Fraternal Order of Police, Corey Leavell of the RCPD community advisory council, as well as Will Chernoff and Jonalu Johnstone of the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice.
Over the past year they studied 261 marijuana cases, 40 of which were determined to have followed stops for minor traffic infractions — such as failure to properly signal a turn or having a burnt out brakelight — and found “no overt indications that RCPD officers were targeting minorities for marijuana enforcement.”
“Looking at it, we didn’t see any pattern of racial bias in the traffic stops for minor offenses,” Detective Johnson said.
They found that in all relevant cases during that time period that officers followed established RCPD guidelines, had probable cause or reasonable suspicion to perform searches and that stops coincided with heightened DUI enforcement efforts and largely occurred in locations where traffic problems and criminal activity are more prevalent.
“Overlying those arrests with DUIs almost overlaid perfectly except for a couple examples,” Johnson said.
They also found that 85 percent of the cases occurred during the night, which peer-reviewed academic scholarship states makes it harder for officers to determine the race of a motorist prior to a stop.
Though they found no specific instances nor a pattern of racial bias by Riley County police, the committee acknowledged that “perceptions of racial bias on the part of the RCPD is a serious issue and worthy of examination.” They recommended that RCPD continue to conduct recurring training for officers on implicit bias, to continue to monitor the number of stops conducted under the DUI enforcement initiative called Operation ARC and to continue to train and encourage officers to “use the principles of procedural justice when communicating to the public outside of traffic safety stops.”
“We don’t know exactly what is creating that disproportionate amount of arrests for marijuana, but we’re grateful for the [Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice for continuing] their vigilance to ensure that our police agency is not conducting ourselves in a racially biased manner,” said Johnson.
Law Board member and Manhattan Mayor Pro Tempore Usha Reddi thanked the committee for their work and said the study was a good first step at looking into the situation, but that the issue of the disproportionate amount of arrests still remains.
“I think this just raises the question not so much that maybe we’re pulling people over because they’re black, but maybe once we pull people over are some being able to get more leniency than others,” said Reddi. “And I don’t know how you look at that.”
Jonalu Johnstone and John Exdell spoke during public comment to urge the board to not stop at this study and to continue looking into the situation to determine why the arrest rate is as it is. Exdell also encouraged the board to consider sending the study to Professor Charles Epp at the University of Kansas, a scholar who has studied how race impacts an individual’s experience in police stops, to offer comments on it.
Law Board Member Dr. BeEtta Stoney agreed that the study was a good first step, saying that it didn’t completely resolve the issue. She asked for patience from those concerned as they continue to look into the topic.
“Work with us and continue working with us, keep us on radar because we want to keep this on radar as well,” Stoney said. “I want to see it through to how can we solve these problems.”
Law Board Chair Craig Beardsley thanked everybody involved with the committee and the study, saying it gave them a “good start on Manhattan/Riley County statistics versus the rest of the United States.
“I think it’s more meaningful when we talk about us here, and I thank everybody for going into it with the depth you did.”
