Racial Profiling in Antioch

In May 2007, two African American students at Deer Valley High School were expelled from school for running away from police officers who tried to cite them for blocking traffic while they walked through the parking lot of a shopping center.The students’ expulsions were upheld by the Contra Costa County Board of Education, notwithstanding that (1) neither student’s conduct constituted an expellable offense under the California Education Code, and (2) the district had no jurisdiction to expel the students based on an incident that occurred off-campus after school and was unrelated to any school activity. Moreover, the students’ expulsion hearings were not conducted in conformity with the requirements of the California Education Code or federal and state due process requirements. The ACLU’s investigation of this incident led to the discovery of numerous other incidents of highly questionable conduct by Antioch police officers and school officials, and the ACLU is now convinced that this incident is part of a larger pattern of profiling and racially discriminatory conduct on the part of the police department; the school district and has taken legal action on the students’ behalf. An investigation conducted by Bay Area Legal Aid and Public Advocates regarding harassment of Section 8 tenants by the Antioch Police Department has revealed a similar pattern of discrimination.

Source: The Persistence Of Racial And Ethnic Profiling In The United States by ACLU and Rights Working Group (August 2009)