Senators Ricardo Lara and Holly Mitchell on Monday sent a letter to the Attorney General and chairs of the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board in response to several nationwide incidents involving possible racial bias in police calls.
In the letter, the Senators ask the AG and advisory board to look into solutions including possible training for police and dispatchers, and how to better identify policing calls for racial bias.
The letter comes in response to the widely publicized BBQ incident at Lake Merritt, in addition to other nationwide incidents, including two black men who were arrested for sitting at a Starbucks in Philadelphia and a black graduate student at Yale who took a nap in the common room.
“These incidents are traumatic for the people directly involved and also for the entire black community. Racial minorities should not have to justify their right to exist in public spaces, and certainly should not be called to do so by police,” the letter stated.
The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board was created by the Legislature in 2015 to make recommendations to reduce racial profiling in policing.