African-American drivers represent 29 percent of Davenport motorists pulled over by police in 2013, even though they represent only 10 percent of the city’s population, according to a university study presented Tuesday.
St. Ambrose University professor Chris Barnum has tracked city traffic stops for the past three years and compared them with the Davenport Police Department’s own data. In 2011, the department decided to begin tracking individual officers’ traffic stops in response to racial profiling concerns that circulated throughout the city’s minority communities.
“There definitely was a problem, and instead of running from it, we’re addressing it head on,” Barnum said Tuesday before releasing 2013 traffic stop data at a public meeting inside Davenport’s League of United Latin American Citizens center. The city funded the study.
To determine what the driving population looked like throughout the city, Barnum’s research team observed motorists at 25 different locations across Davenport and recorded each driver’s race and sex and compared their totals with police data.
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