Manchester Chief Issues Report On Race And Police Traffic Stops

MANCHESTER — An analysis of police motor vehicle stops in 2012 showed that about 73 percent of drivers pulled over in town were white, about the same percentage as in the town’s overall population, according to a report presented to the board of directors Tuesday night.

But while black people make up 12.3 percent of Manchester residents, 22.3 percent of all operators pulled over were black, Police Chief Marc Montminy told directors.

Montminy also told the board about a new state law, which took effect in October, requiring police to collect more information on each traffic stop, statistics that then must be submitted to the state. The information includes not only the driver’s race, but also the officer’s name and badge number and the driver’s home town. Also, police officers must tell drivers they can file a formal complaint if the driver feels the stop was motivated solely by race.

The report broke down 5,307 motor vehicle stops, comparing the race, ethnicity and gender of the drivers with the latest U.S. Census figures on Manchester’s population. The town’s total population of 58,241 is 71.4 percent white, 12.3 percent black, 7.9 percent Asian, 8.1 percent multiracial and .3 percent Native American. Hispanics, who can be either white or black, make up about 12 percent of the population.

Of all drivers stopped, 72.6 percent were white, 22.3 percent were black, 2 percent were Asian and about 3 percent were listed as unknown. Those classified as Hispanic accounted for 14 percent of the stops, 2 percent more than would be expected based on population alone, Montminy wrote.

Although black drivers were stopped in greater proportion than their representation in the overall population, “this alone is not necessarily attributable to police bias,” he wrote. “Other factors, such as the crime rate in largely minority neighborhoods and police resource deployment, contribute to the statistics.”

Overall, the data on results of stops — including warnings, citations and arrests — showed that no group was treated more harshly than another, Montminy reported. He noted, however, that because the 2012 data does not include the home towns of those stopped, there is no way to know how many were Manchester residents.

One problem that remains with the new law, Montminy said, is that officers must guess a driver’s ethnicity.

“Picture the ill will you would create,” he said, by handing a ticket to a driver and then asking, “Are you Hispanic?”

Montminy also wrote that officers often pull over drivers without knowledge of their race, ethnicity or gender.

The chief said outside the meeting that a significant factor is missing from the law’s requirements: the race of the officer. That information, he said, would help answer the question of whether an officer of any race is stopping more people of another race or ethnicity.