A Very Fuzzy Profile

The August firing of six-year veteran Austin Police Dept. Officer Tim Enlow for "alleged racial profiling" -- as APD Chief Stan Knee termed it -- has raised more questions than answers for law enforcement officials following the case. Some officers dispute the fairness of firing Enlow for an offense that the department hasn't clearly defined -- and which wasn't even mentioned in APD policy when the alleged infraction took place. Others ask whether departmental restrictions regarding actions off-duty officers take to stop crime actually hamper proactive policing.

Enlow was called into the APD's Internal Affairs office May 29, 2001, to discuss a pair of drug-related arrests he made while off-duty in February. According to APD's General Orders, off-duty officers' crime-fighting capabilities are limited to situations "only to safeguard life and property or prevent the escape of a criminal." The issue concerning Enlow's February arrests remained unclear; the IA investigators seemed much more interested in a March 13 arrest Enlow made while working off-duty security in the Fiesta grocery store parking lot on 381/2 Street.

Enlow told the The Police Line (the Austin Police Association's newsletter) and the Austin American-Statesman that while patrolling the lot, he noticed two African-American teenagers getting into a late model Ford F-150 pickup. "The two guys almost jumped out of their freaking shoes when they saw me," he told the Statesman. Noticing that a reverse light on the truck was out, Enlow followed the teens under the mistaken assumption that driving with a faulty reverse light gave him cause to stop the truck. When Enlow turned on his cruiser lights, the truck sped off.

Enlow eventually caught up with the teenagers, and discovered that the car had been reported stolen. The glove box contained 11 rocks of crack cocaine. The driver was charged with evading arrest, but neither he nor his friend was charged with drug possession. Enlow told The Police Line that he could not "honestly say" he'd seen either of the two go for the glove box. And since the car was stolen, the teenagers might not have known the drugs were there.

During his lengthy IA interview, Enlow implied in passing that two African-American teens driving such a new truck was suspicious. On Aug. 7, he was indefinitely suspended (the civil service equivalent of termination) -- but not explicitly for racial profiling. The termination memo states that based on APD's General Orders limiting off-duty actions, the off-duty Enlow should not have taken police action against the teenagers. It also held that Enlow had failed to maintain an impartial attitude -- covered in the APD Code of Conduct -- by choosing to pursue them.

In the course of a series of news reports, what had initially been Enlow's "impartial attitude" violation was transformed into an allegation of racial profiling. In turn, Enlow apparently became the first Texas peace officer fired for such an infraction. "We believe in building trust with the community, and when officers engage in racial profiling, it has a very negative impact on building trust," Knee told the Statesman shortly after the firing. "So those incidents are viewed very seriously."

Enlow is appealing his termination and is scheduled to go for an arbitration hearing in February. "It floors me that [APD has] gone this route," said Mike Rickman, Enlow's new attorney and a former Mesquite police officer, who has advised his client against further press interviews pending the hearing. "They've gone out of their way to sustain these charges." At the time of the March 13 incident, the APD did not yet have a specific racial-profiling policy, but relied upon the Code of Conduct's "Impartial conduct" mandate. APD did not begin its field observation tracking system -- a new, more thorough anti-racial-profiling program -- until April. And it wasn't until Aug. 5 that the new policy was being implemented citywide.

In essence, it seems, Enlow has been fired under the guidelines of a policy that didn't even exist at the time of the March 13 incident. APD spokesman Paul Flaningan confirmed that there has not been any department-wide training regarding the new racial-profiling policy. "It wasn't like there was one all-day training session," he said. Instead, training and incorporation of the new tracking system was mainly confined to "show-ups" -- briefing time held before the start of an officer's shift, he said.

The lack of standardized training and guidance regarding the new policy makes firing Enlow for the violation unfair, attorney Tom Stribling told The Police Line. "Before someone loses his career, you would think there first should have been clear guidelines as to what the department considers racial profiling," he said. "Then there should've been training for every officer."

Enlow was also cited for failing to obey the APD's General Order about off-duty arrests, which restricts officers' involvement to situations that pose an immediate danger to the public. But according to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, off-duty peace officers are charged with protecting public safety even outside their jurisdiction. "I think the citizens of Austin, Texas, ought to be up in arms," said Rickman. "It's called neglect of duty, and I tell you, there's not an officer in this state that, if they saw something [suspicious], would be able to turn away." Asked if these regulations might interfere with an off-duty officer's ability to do his or her job, APD spokeswoman Laura Albrecht responded, "No, [APD policy] does not hamper their ability to do that [proactive policing]."

But APA President Mike Sheffield warns that APD's blurry racial profiling definition and restrictions regarding off-duty actions might confuse officers on the street. The APD needs to provide clear answers, which he hopes will emerge from Enlow's arbitration. "Officers are questioning their experiences and the things they've learned over their time as being police officers, before they take action," he said. "It makes them wonder, where is the department, really, on these issues?"