Racial profiling not acceptable, says former cop

A longtime former Valley police officer who helped write the provision in Senate Bill 1070 that requires cops to ask for immigration status in certain situations, has no concerns about racial profiling by police.

Levi Bolton, with the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, said if racial profiling happens it’s not because the law is bad, it’s because of a bad cop.

Opponents call it the ‘show me your papers’ provision and said that the police will target Latinos for traffic stops.

“We have mechanisms to deal with bad cops. Police officers who use race as an indication of criminality need to be doing something else for a living,” he said.

Bolton, who retired after 32 years on the force, will become executive director of the Arizona Police Association in September.

“I challenge you … to go out at 7 p.m., drive down the street through your tinted windows, look into someone else’s car and tell me what their gender and sex is.”

Bolton said identification will be one of the first tools officers use to determine if someone is here illegally during a traffic stop.

“The absence of any record of the person is a first clue. Generally, a person is dressed for work. Do you have a payroll stub you can share with me? How about your work ID, voter registration, anything, even a library card. The absence of any of that will usually do it.”

Bolton said it’s not profiling by officers to ask for ID — they do it everyday to everyone on stops. Arizona residents will be arrested if they can’t produce ID and the police can’t find them with a records check just as is the case with someone in the country illegally.

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