Teens say stop and search tactics used widely by police
Ask Domingos DaRosa how many times he gets stopped by the police and he fires back the same question many young black men in Boston ask:
"Per month?"
In June, DaRosa was stopped three times. In the latest incident, DaRosa said he was doing nothing more standing on a sidewalk near his motorcycle talking to a group of teenagers when a police officer approached him.
"He said `whose stolen bike is this?" DaRosa recalls. "I said `it's mine and it's not stolen.'"
The police officer asked DaRosa for his license, but then refused to return it. When DaRosa asked the officer for his badge number, the officer drove off.
DaRosa, 24, who supervises a swim team at the Cleveland Community Center, said his experiences with police fit a common pattern of abuse of black, Latino and Cape Verdean youths.
The teens say they are routinely stopped, frisked, searched, cursed at and harassed by police officers. Teenagers and youth workers spoke to the Banner about growing up under what many described as a police state.
"It happens to us all the time," said Matt Parker, a life-long South End resident who graduated from South Boston High School this year. "They tell you to shut up if you complain. They'll ask if they can search you. But if you say no, they'll search you anyway."
Police officials say that stopping teens without a reasonable suspicion runs counter to departmental policy, but the teens say the police regularly bend the rules.
Often the stops involve an information gathering procedure police call FIO, short for Field Intelligence Observation Report. The teens are well-versed in the procedure.
"They ask your name and your address, where we are coming from and where we hang out," Parker says. "They ask us what we're wearing, how we describe our clothes. The detectives will say `you look like you're dealing drugs.'"
While the information collected is commonly used to monitor gang activity in an area, the teens say police indiscriminately stop youths who are not criminally involved.
Often, the police officers input the data they collect into a database.
"It can be an effective crime tool," said one police department source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "You put a name in a database, it lists everybody that that person is associated with. But you can be listed as associated with people you have nothing to do with. You just happened to be in the same area."
The police source estimated that 80 percent of the names in the database are African Americans or Latinos.
By law, police have the right to stop citizens if the officer has an articulable "reasonable suspicion" that an individual has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime.
Police may pat suspects down to ensure they are not carrying a weapon, but they do not have the right to search suspects for drugs unless they have probable cause to arrest the suspect.
In practice, however, teenagers say they are routinely stopped and searched without reasonable suspicion.
"Cape Verdeans, blacks, Spanish, Asians -- it happens to all of us," DaRosa said. "They roll up and say `I'm a cop -- you do what I say or I'll arrest you.
"A lot of kids are afraid to say `you can't search me' because they think they'll get locked up."
Often, the police will tell the people they pull over they fit the description of a suspect in a crime.
"They always say I fit the description of someone who committed a crime, which is their big excuse," Parker said. "It just doesn't make any sense."
While stopping citizens without a reasonable suspicion is widely seen as unconstitutional, a Boston Police officer has accused Area C Captain Robert Dunford of ordering officers under his command to do just that.
In a complaint filed against the city, the Police Department and Dunford, Officer Javon Lacet says Dunford made a roll call order that police patrol Wainwright Park and stop and search the teens there "because they were all carrying guns."
Police Department officials have declined to comment on the Lacet case, citing pending litigation, but spokesman Kevin Jones said citizens who feel that they've been wrongly stopped and searched by police should file complaints.
"They have the right to make a complaint," he said. "If it's not brought to our attention, we don't know anything about it."
DaRosa, who says he did file a complaint after being beaten by police officers in 1997, said he was stymied by what he said was collusion among the officers.
"When I wanted to file charges, the first thing they asked me for was a police report," he said. "But I couldn't get it when I asked for it. It took me nearly three weeks to get it. Then the police officers all collaborated their stories and backed each other up."
Craig McClay, who works with Parker at Teen Empowerment, a South End-based youth agency, says many teens put up with the searches because they are not aware of their 4th Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure.
"People aren't informed of their rights," he said. "And a lot of cops know they don't know their rights. And even if they do complain, it's just the police policing the police."
McClay had to call police numerous times before he was able to find out what the procedure is for filing a complaint after he was stopped three months ago, while trying to hail a cab in his Mission Hill neighborhood.
McClay says the police officers' practice of stopping and searching teens creates an adversarial relationship with teens and police.
"Young people don't see the police as allies," he said. "They see them as enemies. And the police project their discriminatory thoughts on the kids."
For teenagers who have been arrested, the problem onlya gets worse. Parris Bennett, a lifelong South End resident who volunteered with teen empowerment, says he is often stopped several times a day by police officers.
"They come into a park, seven cars deep and sweep us," he said. "They say, `we're doing this all summer, so get used to it.'
"But this is where I grew up," he said. "If you want to make hanging out a crime, then lock me up. They might as well get a cell ready for me."
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