FAYETTEVILLE — Two local community leaders have joined a 13-member state task force on racial profiling at Gov. Mike Beebe’s request, but neither said they know much about the issue in Northwest Arkansas.
“I have no idea if racial profiling is going on in Springdale,” said Eddie Cantu, pastor of an Hispanic church in Springdale. Cantu served on the Springdale School Board for several months during the 2008-09 school year.
John L Colbert, assistant superintendent in the Fayetteville School District, said he also wasn’t aware of racial profiling cases in Fayetteville or Northwest Arkansas.
The task force’s first assignment is to gather information on profiling in Arkansas, Colbert said.
The first meeting was held Dec. 17 in Little Rock. Beebe at that meeting said the task force grew out of a concern that the state’s new primary seat belt law would be an excuse for law enforcement officers to pull over people based on race.
The new law allows police to pull over drivers if they aren’t wearing seat belts. Previously, a driver could be cited for not wearing a seat belt only if they had committed another offense.
“All we need is truth, honesty and objective data, good suggestions, clarity, good ideas and simple and fair,” Beebe said at that inaugural meeting.
Colbert said the task force has three years to complete its mission to determine the extent racial profiling occurs and make recommendations.
A law passed several years ago was intended to provide law enforcement training to curb racial profiling.
“Hopefully, departments have implemented training,” Colbert said. “We may have isolated areas where it occurs.”
The task force was created by Act 1458 of 2009 by Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff.
“Hopefully our findings are on the positive side, not the negative side,” Colbert said.