Tulsa World: OHP stops under scrutiny

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OHP stops under scrutiny
Most motorists halted by a special unit are from out of state and most receive warnings.

An OHP trooper pulls over a tractor-trailer rig on Interstate 44 this month at the toll gate near Stroud. STEPHEN HOLMAN / Tulsa World

By CURTIS KILLMAN World Staff Writer
Published: 8/16/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 8/16/2009 3:38 AM

An Oklahoma Highway Patrol unit that specializes in criminal interdiction stops thousands of vehicles per year, most from out of state, but lets nearly every driver go with just a warning, a Tulsa World analysis of five years of OHP traffic enforcement data indicates.

Critics say the practice amounts to drug-courier profiling. Supporters say the unit is simply fulfilling its mission of interrupting "the criminal element."

Of the stops made by the patrol's Special Operations Troop, 78 percent of the warnings and citations went to drivers from outside Oklahoma, the data show.

Most drivers were sent on their way without a citation — 93 percent received just a warning.

A small percentage of the stops resulted in a drug trafficking-related arrest or the seizure of cash believed to be linked to drug trafficking.

Out-of-state drivers received 19 percent of the citations issued by all other state troopers during the same time period.

Law enforcement officials praised the OHP's drug-interdiction efforts.

District Attorney Jerry Moore, whose jurisdiction includes Sequoyah County, said his office receives thousands of dollars per year from the forfeiture of cash and property seized in connection with drug trafficking.

"It's great for us, and it takes drugs off the streets," he said.

Civil libertarians and criminal defense attorneys questioned the tactics.

"Why give warnings if it's not just an excuse to pull somebody over?" asked defense attorney Creekmore Wallace. "I don't know that it's racial profiling. It's definitely drug-courier profiling, in my opinion."

Wallace has defended motorists who have been arrested by the Special Operations Troop, including several on the Turner Turnpike in Creek County.

He charged that troopers routinely target rental vehicles and cars with out-of-state license tags that stop to pay tolls at turnpike gates rather than zip through with a PikePass.

"If the Highway Patrol is going to become an arm of the bureau of dangerous drugs and state bureau of narcotics, that should be said. But to me — maybe it's just because I'm 65 years old — they are supposed to enforce traffic laws and keep me from getting killed on the road," Wallace said.

An American Civil Liberties Union official who was briefed on the World analysis said it was not a surprise that out-of-state drivers were being stopped disproportionately.

Nicole Kief, an ACLU state strategist, said in an e-mail, "We believe that police should target for traffic stops and other investigations people who exhibit legitimate signs that they are engaged in illegal activities, and that profiling based on other characteristics is an ineffective and unjust policing technique."

OHP Capt. Chris West, a patrol spokesman, was asked whether the Special Operations unit targeted out-of-state drivers. He replied, "Absolutely not."

West noted that many Special Operations units work close to border states.

"There are more out-of-state tags on those (highways) that we are going to come into contact versus county roads, state highways, U.S. highways," he said.

Special Operations troopers operate across the state, but records show that since 2004 slightly more than half of all their warnings were issued in five counties Sequoyah, Craig, Atoka, Creek and Custer.

Troopers issued the most warnings — 11,970 — in Sequoyah County, and most of those were written on Interstate 40 near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.

Craig County, which includes the Will Rogers Turnpike toll plaza, ranked a close second with 11,545 warnings.

'High-volume contact'

The Special Operations Troop issued nearly 81,000 warnings and citations between March 2004 and December 2008, according to the World's analysis of data it received in the settlement of a lawsuit it filed against the state Department of Public Safety, which oversees the patrol.

The department's Web site says members of the unit have "special training and equipment to enable them to detect and arrest criminals of all types as they travel on the highways of Oklahoma."

The troop also has trained canine handlers.

West said: "These guys in SO are high-volume contact guys. They are out there trying to interrupt criminal activity, and the way to do that is through high volumes of contact with the motoring public."

The Special Operations Troop made 203 interdictions from Jan. 1, 2008, through Nov. 30. That amounts to a seizure in about 1 percent to 2 percent of its vehicle contacts during that time period.

Those interdictions netted about $10 million in cash, nearly two tons of marijuana, 90 pounds of cocaine and smaller amounts of other illegal drugs, Highway Patrol data show.

The World's analysis shows that drivers from Texas, California and Arizona were the most commonly warned. Together the three states accounted for 1.5 times more warnings than those issued to Oklahoma drivers.

Getting stopped

Frank Goethe was one of those out-of-state drivers who was stopped by a Special Operations trooper.

Goethe, 49, said he had the cruise control on his vehicle set on about 71 mph last December when he was driving east on Interstate 40 near the Oklahoma-Arkansas border.

The California man was driving his daughter's car, which had Nevada tags, when a trooper picked it out of a cluster of other vehicles and pulled him over, he charged.

Goethe said the trooper escorted him back to his patrol vehicle, where they began to talk.

"Then I thought, 'He's going to see where my attitude is,'" Goethe said. "He's going to bait me, because I've never been asked to go get out of my vehicle and sit in the front seat."

Goethe said the trooper asked him whether he was nervous and why his hand was shaking.

"I told him I was on some medication" following his recent kidney transplant, Goethe said. The medication caused him to tremble, he said.

"He said, 'I was concerned about you being tired,'" Goethe recalled. The trooper told him that he had been stopped because he had driven across the median, he said.

"I didn't cross the median," Goethe asserted.

"It was almost like he wanted me to show some anger or say something out of line so he could jack me up, for lack of a better term," he said.

Goethe said he then mentioned to the trooper that he was a veteran and flashed an ID card showing that he was retired from the Air Force.

The trooper then began to "soften up," Goethe said, adding that he thinks he was stopped in part because he is black.

Another driver, Barry Master of Mesa, Ariz., said he had the cruise control on his vehicle set at about 72 mph when a trooper pulled him over last November on I-40 near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border, where the speed limit is 70 mph.

"I think he had me at 73," Master said.

But Master, 58, admitted that he had become momentarily distracted and had briefly driven on the shoulder just before he was pulled over.

"It was nothing serious, but he was justified" in the traffic stop, said Master, who is white. "I think he was doing his job, and I don't have a problem with it at all. His main concern was he thought I might be impaired."

Race of drivers

A World analysis of the race of drivers stopped by the Special Operations Troop found that whites were listed as receiving 65 percent of the warnings.

The SO Troop is the only OHP unit to record data for both citations and warnings, Department of Public Safety officials said. OHP officials said the department does not maintain warning data for other troops.

The Department of Public Safety, in releasing the data to the World, cautioned that the race designation on warnings is "based solely on the trooper's visual observation."

Hispanic drivers received 18 percent of the warnings, and blacks tallied 12 percent of the warnings.

Asians received 2 percent of the warnings, and American Indians received about 1 percent of them.

But in hundreds of cases troopers listed the warned drivers as Caucasian even though they had traditionally Hispanic names and had addresses in Mexico.

Overall, the race figures for the special unit are similar to those in 2001 data the World analyzed.

The 2001 data was obtained as part of a lawsuit filed by a black Army sergeant against the OHP following a traffic stop and search of his vehicle.

The sergeant received $75,000 in a settlement of the lawsuit, in which he claimed to have been illegally stopped and searched.

West said the OHP does not employ racial or so-called drug-courier profiling techniques.

"Profiling doesn't work," he said. "You can ask any criminal interdiction unit around the country. They will tell you: Profiling doesn't work.

"If you go after a specific profile, you are going to miss a lot."

World battled for the data

The Tulsa World sued the Department of Public Safety in July 2001 seeking electronic data from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol on citations and warnings as well as documents on drug searches and use of force.

The World initially requested the data for a breakdown of traffic stops by the race of the driver.

The department provided some documents but refused to provide most of what the World sought, including the database of traffic citations.

Seven years after the World made its initial request under the state Open Records Act, the Oklahoma Court of Civil appeals ruled in the World’s favor, remanding some remaining issues to a lower court.

The World and the department have resolved many issues and are working to resolve all the remaining issues.

The department has provided the data sought in the original request.

Curtis Killman 581-8471
curtis.killman@tulsaworld.com By CURTIS KILLMAN World Staff Writer

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Some reader comments for this story were copied from "Sunday: OHP unit accused of profiling," which was published on 8/15/2009.

	Report Comment QLC, (8/15/2009 2:48:17 PM) Shocking! Perhaps only in Oklahoma.
	Report Comment mefordz, wagoner (8/15/2009 2:55:02 PM) sounds to me like they are doing the job they are paid to do.
	Report Comment Just a country boy, North Okmulgee County (8/15/2009 2:55:46 PM) I have had hair down to the middle of my back most of my life and I know for a fact I have been profiled for drugs several times in the past. I even had a past boss tell me if he was in charge when I got hired I wouldn't have had a job. So on it goes Profiling by the police will never end.
	Report Comment Bville, (8/15/2009 2:58:31 PM) Drug courier profiling. Gee, we wouldn't THAT to happen. It'll be interesting to see if the full article actually names the critics.
	Report Comment Whirled Peas, (8/15/2009 3:16:54 PM) Seizing "drug money" is an old trick. It's well known that paper currency contains traces of Cocaine, and if you put enough bills in your wallet a drug dog will find it. Since it's found by a drug dog, they claim it is "drug money" and seize it without warrant or probable cause. It's highway robbery under the guise of "war on drugs" and it's just another lie by people who find it easy to lie.
	Report Comment Whirled Peas, (8/15/2009 3:23:40 PM) I believe this troupe specializes in "fishing expeditions" where they stop out-of-towners for no reason and intimidate them into submitting to a warrant-less search in order to find anything to justify the stop. That explains the high number of "warnings" issued.
	Report Comment marine2.0, (8/15/2009 3:27:34 PM) So What? Profiling what? They just don't pull over vehicles without cause. How many people travel and actually go the speed limit in other states. Very few. Whirled Peas, stop watching so much T.V. There is a lot more that goes into determining what is and is not "drug money". The minute amount thaat can be found on some bills is rarely detectable.
	Report Comment Republicator, (8/15/2009 3:28:24 PM) Good, who cares about drug dealers? let em rot. LOL no habla.
	Report Comment Bville, (8/15/2009 3:28:28 PM) If cocaine-laced currency is so prevalent, it would seem the law would have to do a tad more than simply claim it is drug money.
	Report Comment Republicator, (8/15/2009 3:29:37 PM) errrr and what is your preferred method of stopping drug dealers? lol
	Report Comment Bville, (8/15/2009 3:29:45 PM) I've never been stopped in another state. :)
	Report Comment getreal, (8/15/2009 3:39:02 PM) The OHP doing something not quite on the up and up? Shocking, simply shocking!
	Report Comment DomoArrigato, Outside of Tulsa (8/15/2009 4:15:29 PM) First they justify the stopping of the car by pulling them over for "an improper lane change". This offense can not be proven either way, other than by the OHP Officer's word. Then they ask if they can do a "safety check" of the vehicle. (assuming that you fit the profile of a dope runner) If the driver refuses, they then call for a dope sniffing dog. (if you refuse, you must be hiding something) When it gets to court assuming that he was transporting drugs, as often as not they reduce the charges on the driver and give him a suspended sentence, however any money that he was carrying is forfeited. (guess who shares in the forfeited money?) If the driver wasn't carrying anything illegal, they are given a warning for the "improper lane change" Drugs are a problem, but this is not the solution to that problem. Destruction of the drugs at the country of origin is the solution, with rehab and drug education strengthened in the US.
	Report Comment Ron B, (8/15/2009 4:19:20 PM) Some call it profiling, I call it good police work. Those who wish to run around looking like a junkie have that right, but they should expect to police to look at them closer. If drug runners dressed in suits and ties and acted like normal people, the police probably wouldn't stop them. Put on a deer suit during deer season, and you may get shot because deer hunters profile.
	Report Comment ok sooner, (8/15/2009 4:22:02 PM) Yes they do pull over cars without cause. they set at toll boths and stop Mexicans with out of state tags.
	Report Comment Just a country boy, North Okmulgee County (8/15/2009 4:37:28 PM) Ron B What does a junkie look like? Most of the time a junkie looks like everyone else.
	Report Comment Bville, (8/15/2009 5:04:00 PM) Mr. Left: a shining example of intelligent discourse.
	Report Comment Carlos, Tulsa (8/15/2009 6:20:17 PM) Tulsa World, Thank you for your investigative efforts into the OHP. Since they seem to think they don't do anything wrong, they shouldn't mind you looking. Keep up the good work!
	Report Comment American Libertarian Movement, Tulsa (8/15/2009 6:28:45 PM) So long as their reason to stop someone was legal, then it is not profiling folks...
	Report Comment CWG, Tulsa (8/15/2009 6:40:59 PM) Bunch of stupid commens.
	Report Comment Matt in BA, Broken Arrow (8/15/2009 7:06:33 PM) I hope the story tomorrow has more facts on the number of cars pulled over vs the number of cars on the road. Seems to me these percentages above could be of a population of less than 5% of all the cars that travel the highways.
	Report Comment Ron B, (8/15/2009 7:50:58 PM) Country boy, I have been a pharmacist for many years, some in hospital, most in retail. You get to the point that you know who is going to try to buy syringes, fill narcotic prescriptions which are probably not needed, etc. Those trying to pass forged prescriptions have mannerisms you pick up on, those trying to call in false prescriptions don't have the same cadence as a physician's office, etc. Believe me, the druggies stand out like a sore thumb.
	Report Comment flyingtheo, Broken Arrow (8/15/2009 7:51:32 PM) Too bad Texas doesn't feel the same way about Oklahoma drivers. The Oklahoma plate seems to be a "Stop me, write me a ticket" invitation.
	Report Comment jess, (8/15/2009 8:12:42 PM) Nothing wrong with profiling except with the PC crowd.
	Report Comment Just a country boy, North Okmulgee County (8/15/2009 8:53:02 PM) Ron B And you can tell all of that when they pass you going 65+ down the highway?

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