BACA BLEW CHANCE TO SILENCE CRITICS SHERIFF SHOULD BE WILLING TO PROVE ALL MOTORISTS ARE TREATED EQUALLY.

Byline: Earl O. Hutchinson

Police chiefs in Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco, and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca vehemently deny that their departments racially profile black and Latino motorists.

To prove they don't, the police chiefs agreed to keep racial tallies on the drivers they stop. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recommended that Baca do the same.

He flatly refused to do it. Instead he offered to monitor complaints from the public to see if specific officers engage in racial profiling.

But this is a meaningless, half-measure that does absolutely nothing toget a handle on the problem. It's well-known that blacks and Latinos are far less likely to file complaints against abusive police officers because of intimidation or fear of harassment.

Baca also claimed that it would be too costly and time-consuming to keepracial stats. This is just as flimsy an excuse. Police chiefs in the other cities have found the time and the money to compile the figures and they have not complained about the cost and effort. In fact, if cost was really a big obstacle, then the California Highway Patrol would probably squawk the loudest. It makes more traffic stops statewide than any other state police agency in the country. Yet CHP officials voluntarily began compiling stats in 1999, and they did it without any complaint.

Baca's excuses make so little sense that one has to think he refuses to keep stats because he is afraid of what he may find. And with good reason.

In recent years, swelling numbers of blacks and Latinos, many of them respected elected officials, businesspersons, professionals,- and that includes a black state senator and judge - have accused law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County of targeting them for ``driving while black and brown.''

In Northern California, the ACLU has filed a class action suit against the CHP on behalf of Latino motorists who claim that they were racially targeted. Nationally, a Justice Department study found thatblacks comprise about 14 percent of the population, yet account for morethan 70 percent of all routine traffic stops.

Racial profiling has ignited more impassioned fury among black and Latino leaders than almost any other issue. It has sparked demonstrations, lawsuits by dozens of black and Latino motorists, denunciations by many state and national officials, and a demand by Democratic presidential contender Bill Bradley that Gore prodded Clinton to sign an executive order banning racial profiling. The practice is so prevalent and damaging that the Justice Department in December wrung a promise out of state officialsin New Jersey to stop racially profiling motorists.

But Baca certainly must know that black and Latino leaders can complainall they want about ``driving while black and brown'' abuses. Yet there's noway for them to prove their claims without producing hard numbers on who's being stopped, the reasons they're stopped, and whether a search and arrest was made as a result of the stop.

The actions of police agencies in Los Angeles County are intently watched and frequently emulated by other departments across the country. If Baca had agreed to the supervisors' proposal, it might have spurred police and city officials elsewhere who have dodged or foot-dragged on the issue of racial profiling to take action on the problem. It also gave him the golden opportunity to silence once and for all the legions of critics who contend that the Sheriff's Department routinely harasses and intimidates blacks and Latinos on the streets and highways.

Since Los Angeles County is the nation's largest county with blacks, Latinos, and Asians soon to make up a majority of the population, police officials should be duty bound to quell all doubts that they treat minorities unjustly. Though Baca blew his chance to do this by rejecting the supervisor's proposal, they must keep pressing him to do his duty.