ACPRTF Just Rolls Off the Tongue

I had been invited today, as a Healing Racism in Anchorage Steering Committee member, to come to the ACPRTF meeting to discuss Tim Wise's September  Anchorage visit.  (When I mentioned this to my mother just now by phone, she said, "I saw Tim Wise on television last night.  He wrote Colorblind. I'd come to see him."  Except she's in LA.)

In addition to two Anchorage Police Department representatives - including Chief Mark Mew - there were two FBI agents and people from a variety of Anchorage communities.


Here's a little background on the Anchorage Community Police Relations Task Force from the Equal Rights Commission webpages:

Background
The creation of the ACPRTF arose from an unfortunate incident involving a young black male named Cassel Williams on January 14, 1981.  Mr. Williams had fired several shots from his apartment window and the APD was called to intervene.  The responding officers believed it was necessary to use deadly force and Mr. Williams was shot and killed. Considerable concern was raised at the time that other crisis intervention alternatives to deadly force were either not used or not available.  Following extensive discussions, an agreement was reached to establish a ACPRTF. Since its establishment in 1981, the Task Force has operated successfully in its role as a liaison between the ethnic minority community and the APD.  It continues to provide a forum for input and constructive dialog between the ethnic minority community and the APD.  This reinstatement of the original commitment is intended to ensure the continued relevance of the ACPRTF, and further, to ensure that the APD’s philosophical objectives are achieved.
To file an Incident Report, please fill out the form and fax to 343-4395 or email to aerc@muni.org.

 Laura (making a presentation in the picture), from Anchorage United for Youth,  a coalition of organizations that help youth,  talked about their program first and asked for assistance making contact with youth and parents who ought to take advantage of the many programs available in Anchorage.  Often, she said, there are great programs available, but lack of transportation keeps kids out.

Then I got to talk about Tim Wise. (From his Facebook page:

Tim Wise will be on CNN with Don Lemon tomorrow night [Sat Aug 14], about 7:10 EST to discuss "Dr." Laura's public n-word meltdown and all-around racist rant, and to place it in the context of white racism more broadly...check it out, it should be a good one.)

Then there were some reports on complaints received.  Someone whose son had been murdered felt he wasn't kept in the loop by the police and felt the story he heard from witnesses contradicted the outcome.  Another complaint was from a woman who was sitting in her car when the police swooped down and searched her car for drugs.  All she had in her car, she was reported saying, was her bible.  These had been looked into outside the meeting and there wasn't a lot of discussion.

Another issue that came up was racial profiling.  In addition to the previous story, one of the task force members said he'd been stopped twice recently.  In both cases he hadn't done anything wrong.  In one case the police officer demanded to see proof of citizenship.  In the  other case, the reason for the stop was strange - that he had turned left into the wrong lane from Seward Highway into Northern Lights which is a one way street.  In both cases, when he finally mentioned that he was on this task force, the officers gave him his license/registration/insurance back and simply left.  The police chief asked that they meet to discuss this further after the meeting.

The chief said people need to call in and complain right away so it can be investigated when it's fresh.  He also said racial profiling is prohibited.  People are only to be stopped if they have violated the law or if they match descriptions of suspects.  There is no policy saying officers should or shouldn't ask for proof of legal status in the US, but in practice this doesn't come up unless someone is arrested and basically this has happened recently, to his knowledge, in prostitution busts and that's been mostly Asians.

One member said that her mother and her mother's friends would never call in a complaint.  It just wasn't something they would do culturally.  One suggestion was to contact others in their community - such as task force members - who could help them do this.

It was a low key meeting.  I was impressed with the group as a whole and it was good to see the chief listening respectfully and showing what appeared to me to be genuine concern. Though it also appeared that incidents are happening which either aren't being reported or aren't being resolved as well as they could be.

Barbara Jones, the Equal Rights Rights Commission Director, reported that the US Justice Department which helped to create the ACPRTF (do you remember what that stands for with looking above?), will be coming to Anchorage in September to hold community meetings and do a check on things.  As I write this, I'm thinking the Justice Department isn't mentioned in the background info on the web that I posted above.