Anyone remember Al Campanis? Jimmy 'The Greek' Snyder?

Mayor Jerry's at it again.

I'm certain he knows better, but our Mayor again put his foot solidly in his mouth during last night's Champaign City Council meeting, while discussing a report detailing the disproportionate number of blacks being stopped by police.

When I first read it on the Champaign-American blog this morning I thought, that can't be true. There must be more to the story than that.

I waited until I saw this afternoon's News-Gazette to see if it would be reported and if there was more to it.

Well, it was reported in the N-G, and while there WAS a little more to it, there wasn't much.

First, the details. A mandated report shows that in Champaign, blacks are much more likely to be subject to police traffic stops than whites. The numbers, depending on who's interpreting them, are that while blacks make up approximately 13 percent of the driving population, they were involved in 33 percent of the traffic stops. If this is news to you, you haven't being paying attention.
From the News-Gazette:

A report released Tuesday shows that black drivers were involved in 33 percent of all traffic stops in Champaign, though they make up only 13 percent of what the state considers to be the city's driving population.

To their credit, Champaign officials did not (overtly) dispute these facts but accepted them and began talking about how to remedy this disparity. From the N-G:

Deputy Police Chief John Murphy told city council members that the police department will examine further the frequency of blacks being stopped for equipment violations and the disparity between races in ticketing for equipment violations. Search practices will also be further monitored, he said.
"We're not satisfied with the result," he said.

During the discussion, however, our fine mayor, good old boy and former cop that he is, commented eloquently (again from Wednesday's News-Gazette):

Champaign Mayor Jerry Schweighart, a former city police officer, said he believes that blacks tend to be "more confrontational" during traffic stops than whites.
"The language is much more confrontational," he said. "Somehow we need to get together with the (black) community and the police on how you act when you are stopped"

Yeah, Jerry; them uppity blacks need to learn how to treat those officers with the proper respect. Teach 'em to talk right. Show deference. They need to know their place...

And so it goes.