Hearing to Air Civil Rights Issues

A citizens advisory committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold a hearing in Costa Mesa on Thursday into allegations that police across Orange County harass minorities.

The hearing follows a smaller forum committee members held with Orange County civil rights activists in 1993. Since then, the commission has received dozens of letters and phone calls from activists complaining that police regularly photograph and videotape minors and target minority youths whose dress loosely resembles gang attire.

“It was time to hold another hearing in California, and Orange County came out on top, because of the passion of the people and some follow-up letters and telephone calls regarding what the community perceived as mislabeling of all youth as gang members, and the impact that had on their lives,” said Tom Pilla, a civil rights analyst with the commission’s Western Region office in Los Angeles.

He said minority leaders had complained that teenagers in gang-ridden neighborhoods were shut in at home, afraid of police harassment on the streets.

In recent years, California courts have awarded law enforcement officers wide leeway to search and photograph suspected gang members and to use public nuisance laws to prohibit them from associating with each other or annoying residents. Police departments across Orange County have used that leeway to create photo directories of suspected gang members, and officers search youths with their consent as a matter of course.

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Anaheim Police Lt. Dave Severson said he understood the hearing would focus on the photographing of gang members and how gang members are identified.

“That stuff is all part of a protocol followed real strictly by police all over the county, so to tell you the truth, I don’t know what they are going to be able to investigate,” he said.

Testimony at the hearing may be used to recommend action by federal prosecutors. But neither the advisory committee nor the Civil Rights Commission have subpoena powers, nor can they bring charges. The commission is a federal agency created in 1957 to investigate civil rights abuses nationwide, and it appoints the 18-member citizens advisory committee.

Among those invited to testify is former Anaheim police officer Steve Nolan, who a Santa Ana jury found in March was fired in retaliation for alleging two incidents of police brutality.

Other county law enforcement officials have been invited to speak, along with Latino and Vietnamese civil rights activists who say they will present evidence to the commission on specific complaints.

State and federal legislators have also been invited to attend the hearing.

The forum, in the San Carlos room of the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa, is open to the public. It runs from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.