Police accused of stop-and-frisk policy

Police accused of stop-and-frisk policy

Sitting in Wainwright Park, Moe and his friends are well versed in police Field Interrogation Observation Report procedures. Not the FIOs described in police manuals, but those conducted every day on the streets of their Dorchester neighborhood.

"They take your I.D., search you, check for warrants," says Moe, who would not give his real name.

"They give you a full pat-down," offers another teen. "They make you take your shoes off, feel your nuts, make you take your hat off. They make you move your tongue around."

The teens, none of whom would give their real names for fear of retaliation, know that their names and addresses are in a computerized police database that is updated every time the police conduct an FIO, which they say can range from two-to-three times a month in the winter to three times a week in the summer.

They say the police are a familiar presence, stopping and frisking teens in and around the park.

"Ask any young black person over the age of 14," Moe says.

Also well versed in the FIO procedures of Area C 11 is Boston Police Officer Jovan J. Lacet, who has filed a lawsuit against the city of Boston, the Boston Police Department and Area C 11 Captain Robert P. Dunford, alleging that Dunford's policies have sanctioned what amounts to racial profiling in Dorchester.

In his complaint, Lacet alleges that Dunford ordered his officers to patrol Wainwright Park and stop and search the teens there "because they were all carrying guns."

The order, which Lacet says Dunford gave at a roll call on October 13, 2000, gave the police carte blanche to engage in unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policies against the African American and Asian teenagers who play basketball and hang out in the park.

The stop-and-search policy, according to Lacet, is employed throughout Area C11, which includes most of Dorchester.

Lacet and his attorney, Ozell Hudson, say the stop-and-frisk policy is a violation of the teenagers' Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.

"You can't get guns off the streets at the expense of everybody's civil rights," he said.

Lacet, who was confined to desk duty after filing a complaint with the Internal Affairs Department, then transferred to Area A, is suing the police department for retaliation and emotional distress and seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against further retaliation.

Police spokeswoman Mary Ellen Burns would not comment on Lacet's allegations, citing a department policy against commenting on cases where litigation is pending.

By law, police officers may stop and search citizens if they have what is called a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or is about to be committed.

What constitutes a reasonable suspicion has been the subject of widespread debate. Many cases have hinged on a bulge in a waistband, a furtive gesture or a description of a crime suspect.

"It's not entirely subjective," says civil rights attorney Margaret Burnham. "They have to be able to articulate a reason leading to their suspicion."

But blanket stop-and-frisk policies, like the one Lacet says Dunford ordered for Wainwright Park, are unconstitutional, according to Burnham.

"It can't just be based on location."

Boston Police Superintendent Ann Marie Daugherty, chief of the Bureau of Professional Development, says the department's official policy requires that officers must have "objective articulable facts" that would lead them to believe a suspect may be carrying a weapon before administering a pat-down search.

"It's a pat-down for weapons," she said. "It doesn't include a search for drugs."

Before police officers can search a suspect for drugs, the individual has to have probable cause to arrest the suspect, according to Daugherty.

"It's a higher level than for a frisk [for weapons]," she said. "They have to have probable cause to believe someone has committed a crime.

"These are legal standards that occur throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," Daugherty said of the department's policies.

Lacet's suit does not mark the first time the police department has been sued for stop-and-search policies. In one of several cases in 1989, a Suffolk Superior Court judge ruled that a police policy of searching known gang members in Area B 2 violated the constitutional rights of the gang members.

Burnham brought another suit against the police department in 1989, following a police shooting of an unarmed suspect in the Franklin Hill housing development. The officers named in the suit settled with Burnham's clients and police officials said they would abandon the policy, but Burnham says they never did.

"It keeps coming back," she said. "Especially around summer time when the policing gets more intense."

Hudson says the current wave of stop-and-frisks is fueled in part by the police department's focus on FIOs. During an FIO, police commonly ask teens their names, their addresses and the names of other people in their proximity.

The police write the information down, then record it in their computers, compiling large databases. The databases are used to track criminal activity and gangs, but along with the names of known criminals are the names of many bystanders who are not criminally involved, according to Hudson.

"There are long-term consequences to this," he said. "Even though you weren't arrested, you can be carried in the database as a suspect for crimes that you never committed. And you won't even know it."