Report reveals large racial disparity among Ferndale tickets, arrests involving Black drivers
FERNDALE, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Ferndale police are being called out for "predatory policing" after an alarming study reveals a large racial disparity among Ferndale tickets and arrests.
This news comes after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) held a press conference Thursday morning. It is a report that has CAIR Michigan executive director Dawud Walid demanding structural change within the Ferndale Police Department.
"There is a disproportionate amount of African-Americans who are stopped by the Ferndale Police Department, given citations, as well as arrest, and a significant portion of these motorists don't even drive to Ferndale. They are actually driving through the city of Detroit going eastbound," Walid says.
The title of the report, "Lifting the Veil on Racial Profiling in Ferndale," shows in the first 10 months of 2021, 86% of arrests and 84% of traffic tickets issued by Ferndale police along Eight Mile Road are drivers who are Black, even though only 6.3% of people who live in Ferndale are Black.
"The City of Ferndale Police Department are treating drivers inside the City of Detroit differently than the City of Ferndale," CAIR staff attorney Amy Doukoure says.
The study also states 11% of tickets issued between Jan. 1, 2021, and Oct. 31, 2021, were on the Detroit side of Eight Mile Road, and 80% of all traffic stops made by Ferndale police outside their own city were in Detroit.
Overall, less than 1% of stops were actually Ferndale residents, according to the report.
"We are not talking about active criminal activity, which the Ferndale police were stopping people. We are talking about motorists driving down the road, and we are talking about non-violent offenses," Walid says.
Walid says this is not the first time CAIR Michigan has found racial disparities among minority and/or black drivers. In fact, their latest report is just one of three conducted in the last decade.
He says the most recent report was sparked after a black Muslim woman accused Ferndale officers of forcing her to remove her hijab for a booking photo in October of 2021.
Since then, Walid says CAIR has worked around the clock over the last two years collecting information to support their report. He says anyone who has any doubts about it should read it.
"The statistics don't lie, Ferndale. The statistics do not lie about who's getting pulled, where they getting pulled at, who doesn't get pulled, what are the population demographics of a Ferndale. Black people are not more prone to criminality than white folks. You cannot tell someone driving down the street whether their license is suspended or not," Walid says.
Moving forward, CAIR-MI is calling on the Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation.
In response, Ferndale Police issued the following statement saying, "As an accredited agency, we take policy enforcement and standards very seriously-which includes annual hours of training for fair and impartial policing and implicit bias. We are committed to transparency and progress. If the department of justice has concerns, we are happy to cooperate. We are an open book."
