Palo Alto seeks answers (concern about 2 cops beat black motorist)

[jamesinca]

Palo Alto seeks answers
Surprise, concern about charges that 2 cops beat a black motorist

Ryan Kim and Alan Gathright, Chronicle Staff Writers Friday, August 1, 2003


One day after two Palo Alto police officers were criminally charged with beating a black motorist, some residents in this city -- where diversity has long been embraced -- say they are shocked at the allegations and concerned about racial profiling.

<SNIP>


In 2000, Palo Alto became one of the first cities in California to start collecting racial and ethnic data on every person stopped by police. New statistics on police stops, however, show that minorities have continued to account for a disproportionate number of people pulled over by Palo Alto police.

Prosecutors say race played no role in the beating. Rookie officers Craig Daniel Lee, 40, and Michael Kan, 25, are both Asian American. The victim, 59- year-old Albert Hopkins, a longtime Palo Alto resident and former community college counselor, says the color of his skin was a factor.


<SNIP>

Lee and Kan surrendered in court Thursday and were booked and released on their own recognizance. They are charged with felony assault and battery and are scheduled to return to court on Aug. 22, when they will enter a plea. They face up to three years in prison if convicted of assault by a peace officer.

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They tried to identify him and then attempted to force him from his car. The officers allegedly beat him with batons and then doused him with pepper spray when they couldn't subdue him, prosecutors said. Attorneys for the two officers denied accusations of racism and said the officers were just doing their job.

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Sandra Drake, a Stanford professor of English and African American literature, said she wasn't surprised by the news of the beating. She said she herself was stopped by police near Palo Alto once for simply walking down the street. "I have friends who are black who've been stopped by police, the expression is 'driving while black,' " said Drake. "I'm afraid, even here, there's a tendency for police (who see an ethnic minority) to think: There's something weird going on or you're out of place."


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/01/BA258785.DTL

Mods I know the date listed is yesterday, but it was not printed untill todays edition.

[dArKeR]

1. 'diversity' is NOT 'embraced' in Palo Alto. Money is embraced in PA.

East PA is on the east side of 101. East PA is an low income small neighborhood. West side of 101 are your very wealthy people. But I must also add very liberal type people from all over the world. Many are working at or student at Stanford.

The PA police rule with an iron fist if your from EPA.

These 2 guys were on the PA side when stopped by PA police. I can't remember if EPA has its own police force or they use Santa Clara Country Sheriffs?

Anyway, from SF down to San Jose, I think EPA is the only low income neighborhood and the pigs really pound EPA residents.

Santa Clara County Sheriffs are corrupt. I went to take pics of Reagan at Deanza College field. The SCC Sheriff would not let anyone in the gate who had anything anti-Reagan. I believe a lawsuit is still running from that incident.

[psychopomp]

7. San Mateo County

...but EPA does have its own cops, IIRC.

[salin]

13. mid nineties - for a number of years - it was a 'combined' force

with assistance from the neighboring communities.

[salin]

10. I used to live in EPA

Back in the late 90s there was a controversy with a small group of EPA policemen who gave themselves some stupid nickname (Junkyard Dogs, or something) who were accused of brutality.

EPA is larger than a neighborhood - about 23,000 residents - its a city. Has its own mayor. And it didn't get its first ATM machine in the whole community until, I believe, 1998.

Even pizza delivery often tags on an extra price to deliver in EPA as opposed to four blocks away in PA or Menlo Park.

I believe that PA sees itself as embracing diversity - just that it embraces middle and upper middle class diversity. All other diversity do the lawn work, lowest level of service jobs, and go elsewhere (such as to EPA) to go home.

[TahitiNut]

2. I find the implied 'reverse racism' to be abhorrent.

"Prosecutors say race played no role in the beating. Rookie officers Craig Daniel Lee, 40, and Michael Kan, 25, are both Asian American."

Who the hell thinks an "Asian American" is automatically free of any anti-black racism? I'm one who appreciates Asian cultures, but I'm not blind to the fact that many such cultures have pervasive racial biases. The ethnic Chinese in Vietnam 'enjoyed' a sociopolitical status akin to Jews in Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Japan is notorious for racial prejudice and misogyny. One's racial attributes do not offer immunity to racism. It is every bit as racist to assume that "Asian American" precludes racial bias as to assume that "White" guarantees it. DWB and DWO are both epidemic attitudes in that area.

[jamesinca]

3. Good point

I often forget that any and all races have their bias. I seriously am so use to being a white male that I forget it may be somebody else who might have a racial idea such as that.

[dArKeR]

5. If you know Chinese you know they do not like the black race.

No matter want you want to call it or me or whatever, it's a fact. If you try to say my Subject line is not true then you've never met any Chinese people. I've kicked around a long time in SE Asia. It's mostly because of American TV. That's what the Chinese tell me. Once they actually meet black people Chinese have told me they have no problems being friends. You often see a Taiwanese girl with a black boyfriend in Taiwan but you never see that in HK or China.

I don't have the figures but I'm sure PA has a very very large Asian population.

Lee is obviously Chinese but HK, China, Taiwan...?

Kan sounds, not Chinese, I don't think I've ever heard that spoken in Chinese.

And then you have inter SE Asian racial hatreds. Many Taiwanese hate the Japanese because of their brutal occupaction of Taiwan.

[TahitiNut]

6. Some do. Some don't.

Virtually every human culture is contaminated with bigotry. That does not mean that all or most persons in any such culture are bigots nor does it mean any targets of such bigotry are themselves free of bigotry.

[psychopomp]

8. Way to stereotype

1.2 billion people. You really made yourself look stupid, methinks.

[salin]

11. stereo types are always dangerous.

Have known many - even living in PA or the surrounding areas - who do not harbor these prejudices.

broadstrokes are always a little messy.

[dArKeR]

14. This is a fact in SE Asia. You just can't change fact by what you think or

how you wish other people to be. I would estimate into the 98% range.

I hope I and other open minded people can learn something from this. No matter what you see on TV, read published stories, feel what's right in your heart, who puts spin on what... you can't change fact of how 90% plus Chinese people feel about black people. Again, none of you have lived in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong.

It's also like saying 'Chinese Fire Drill' or 'Chinese Driver'. If any of you have lived in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia... You can film with a DV the proof for youself. Do you know any American friends who have driven in any of these countries? A near fatal traffic incident will happen to you 5 times in 15 minutes. And that's where the terms come from. There's a different set of unwritten driving rules in SE Asia. (You can do anything you want as long as you don't hit the other vehicle. You only have to look forward. Whomever hits another vehicle with the front of their vehicle is at fault, no matter the situation.) I often see children spanked by their parents when the child is hit by a vehicle. It's the pedestrian's responsibility to watch out for vehicles. (Take a trip and learn about the world for yourself.)

Anyway, with respect to Iraq, Liberia... we really don't know what's going on, you have to be there to evaluate and learn facts for yourself.

(A point in mind; my friend who had visisted Iraq in the 80s tells me about; this tribe hates that tribe and than tribe hates this tribe...)

It's one thing to hope and try to change the world but it's ridiculus to pretend facts aren't so.

[JohnKleeb]

15. great point

and reading about those young republicans, I read a quote by one of them who happens to be Tawianese American, worse than many white people I tell you.

[psychopomp]

4. PA Cops act like PIGS

...whose role is to protect the moolah in PA from lower-income people from surrounding burbs that part of the Bay. Shallow Alto ...it really can be.

BTW, there is nothing as stark as the contrast btwn Shallow Alto and their "neighbors." Especially so during Bush I, when Epa City was the "murder capital of the United States." The sound of automatic weapons echoing on a summer night was not uncommon.

[salin]

12. It was amazing how in EPA

residents (at the time - early/mid nineties) had to learn to distinguish between the sounds of gunfire, backfiring cars and firecrackers (all common, all the time) - while four blocks away it was peaceful. One of my paths to work took me through to Menlo Park. It was not unusual for a cop car to be stationed one block north on one of the residential roads (and paths between the cities). Never did see the cops so regularly parked anywhere else in Menlo Park. :shrug:

[beanball]

9. The press

why don't you give this story the same attention as the Kobe Bryant story?