JUSTICE IN AMERICA - Oakland California Police, the Report

"Study slams troubled Oakland police department for racial bias" PBS NewsHour 6/15/2016

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SUMMARY:  The Oakland police department’s history of misconduct — particularly involving African-Americans — has made it the subject of federal oversight for 13 years.  Wednesday, Stanford researchers released the results of a two-year-long study into the department, confirming that Oakland officers exhibit significant racial biases in their day-to-day work.  Special correspondent Jackie Judd reports.

JACKIE JUDD (NewsHour):  The report confirms what African-American residents of Oakland, California, have long known, seen and felt.  Police often treat them very differently than white residents.

REBECCA HETEY, Stanford University:  We found a significant pattern of racial disparities in who was stopped, in who was handcuffed, in who was searched, and in who was arrested.

JACKIE JUDD:  Rebecca Hetey is a Stanford University researcher and an author of the report.

REBECCA HETEY:  More importantly, these disparities remained significant after we took into account a wide range of factors that we would expect to influence police decision-making, like crime rate, like neighborhood demographics.

REV. MICHAEL MCBRIDE, Operation Ceasefire:  It is an insult.  And no one can make me believe that this would be happening in any other community, except for a community that is defined by black, brown and poor people.

JACKIE JUDD:  Activists and brothers Michael and Ben McBride are longtime critics of the Oakland Police Department.

REV. BEN MCBRIDE, Operation Ceasefire:  We have a broken relationship because, while there have been some steps moving forward to try to repair it, there still has not been the kind of honest discourse that needs to happen around truth and reconciliation.

JACKIE JUDD:  According to the most recent FBI statistics, Oakland has more violent crime than any other U.S. city except for Detroit and Memphis.  It was in this supercharged atmosphere that city officials took an unprecedented step.  They decided to have outsiders analyze their officers’ behavior, knowing the results wouldn’t be pretty.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf....

MAYOR LIBBY SCHAAF, Oakland:  It is incredibly important that we ask these hard questions, so that we can get to the bottom of making the department something that the community trusts and that is, in fact, bringing justice.

WOMAN:  So, this when I just broke down the entire stops into both race and gender.

JACKIE JUDD:  Researchers at nearby Stanford University spent two years analyzing vast amounts of data, field reports from 28,000 stops officers made on the streets and roads during a 13-month period, and body-cam video from 2,000 of those encounters.  They expected to find about 7,800 stops of African-Americans.  In fact, there were more than double, almost 17,000 stops.

What surprised everyone involved even more was the huge gap in handcuffing.

RACE & JUSTICE - Deeply Rooted Biases and Law Enforcement

"Oakland tries to address how deeply rooted biases affect law enforcement" PBS NewsHour 12/16/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now, race and justice in America.

Tonight, we look at efforts in Oakland, California, to address bias where it exists in law enforcement.

Special correspondent Jackie Judd has the story.

PROTESTER:  If I can’t breathe!

PROTESTERS:  You can’t breathe!

JACKIE JUDD (NewsHour):  The racial turmoil in the U.S. stemming from encounters between police and black men strikes a chord with Jennifer Eberhardt.  The social psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has spent her career exploring racial bias and how that plays out in the criminal justice system.

Still, it came as a shock to her how embedded biases can be, biases we’re not even aware of.

JENNIFER EBERHARDT, Stanford University:  I’m on an airplane with my son.  And he looks up and he sees a black man, and he says, “Hey, that guy looks like daddy.”

And I look at the guy, he doesn’t look anything like my husband, and I notice he’s the only black guy on the plane.  And he says, “I hope he doesn’t rob the plane.”

And I said, “Well, why would you say that?”

And he looked at me and he said, “I don’t know why I said that.”

And so we’re living with such severe racial stratification that even a 5-year-old can tell us what’s supposed to happen next.

EDUCATION - Seeking Tech ‘Genius’ Among Disadvantaged Teens

"‘Hidden Genius’ helps disadvantaged teens learn code of the tech industry" PBS Newshour 3/4/2014

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GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Last week, President Obama announced a new initiative to help level the playing field for young men of color.

In Oakland California, one program is already under way.

Aarti Shahani of KQED in San Francisco reports.

OK, it didn’t say after the third element.

ARTIE SHAHANI, KQED:  These teenagers spend hours glued to their computer screens.  But they’re not playing games or doing their homework, for that matter.  They’re studying something they’re not taught at school: computer coding.

They’re picking up Python, and HTML5, and Ruby on Rails.

Johnnel White is a sophomore at Vallejo High.

JOHNNEL WHITE:  It’s a new language.  It’s like you learn — like you’re learning Spanish, but you’re learning something else other than Spanish, letters and numbers and symbols.

AARTI SHAHANI:  This is the Hidden Genius Project, a small nonprofit that’s working to recruit young black men into the high-tech sector.  It’s one of the few parts of the economy that’s booming and aching for diversity.

The boys have to apply to the program.  And, if accepted, they commit to classes twice a week in Oakland.