NYTimes.com Article: A Police Force Rebuffs F.B.I. on Querying Mideast Men

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A Police Force Rebuffs F.B.I. on Querying Mideast Men

November 21, 2001 

By FOX BUTTERFIELD


 

The Portland, Ore., police will not cooperate with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation in its efforts to interview
5,000 young Middle Eastern men nationwide because such
questioning violates state law, the department's acting
police chief, Andrew Kirkland, said yesterday. 

The decision is the first known case of a city's refusing
to go along with the antiterrorism effort, which was
announced last week by Attorney General John Ashcroft. 

But top police officials in several other cities have also
said that Mr. Ashcroft's plan raises troubling questions
about racial profiling - an issue that has brought endless
grief to police departments nationwide - and may violate
local and state laws about issues like intelligence
gathering for political purposes. 

Charles Gorder, an assistant United States attorney in
Portland, said he could not comment on the decision by the
police. But Mr. Gorder, who is coordinator of the local
F.B.I. joint terrorism task force, said, "We will get the
interviews done," suggesting that F.B.I. agents would do
the questioning themselves. "We do not think there any
violations of state or federal law," Mr. Gorder added. 

Acting Chief Kirkland said the United States attorney's
office in Portland asked the police last Thursday to help
with interviews of young Middle Eastern men in the city,
sending along a list of 200 names. He said he quickly
decided not to cooperate. 

"I didn't have to think too long about it," Mr. Kirkland
said yesterday in a telephone interview. "We're not going
to do it." 

Mr. Kirkland said Oregon law prohibited the local police
from questioning immigrants when they were not suspected of
any crime and the only issue under discussion was their
foreign citizenship. 

"If the F.B.I. has something specific about a crime they
are investigating, or a potential crime that these people
might commit, then we would reconsider," said Mr. Kirkland,
an assistant chief who is Portland's acting chief this week
while Chief Mark Kroeker is on vacation. 

But the F.B.I. list, he said, contained "no specifics"
about what crimes the 5,000 men might be involved with,
saying only that they had come to this country in the last
two years on student, tourist or business visas from
countries with suspected terrorist links. The department
also received a list of questions about the men's
activities and knowledge of terrorist groups, he said. 

Portland has a large immigrant population, and Acting Chief
Kirkland said the city had historically passed through
periods when immigrants were targets of political and
police persecution. 

Mr. Kirkland, who is black, said his own background had
also played a role in his decision. "I grew up in Detroit,"
he said, "and I hated the police with a passion. They were
always stopping and bothering me." 

F.B.I. agents began interviewing some of the 5,000 men late
last week, but there are so many on the list that Mr.
Ashcroft has asked local police forces around the nation to
conduct many of the interviews themselves, so they can be
completed within 30 days. Despite his sense of urgency, a
number of major city police departments said they had not
yet been officially contacted by the F.B.I. or the Justice
Department. Those cities include Baltimore, Minneapolis,
Tucson and Seattle, police officials said. 

In Seattle, the police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, said that he
had not received a formal request for help but that he had
contacted the local F.B.I. office himself and was told the
bureau was interested in questioning fewer than two dozen
men in Seattle. Since the number was small, Chief
Kerlikowske said, the F.B.I. might be doing all the
interviews itself. 

"I think for police departments this is an incredibly
sensitive problem," the chief said. "On the one hand, we
don't want to harm relationships with community members
that we have worked hard for years to build. We depend on
information that these people bring to us when they come to
trust us." 

"On the other hand," he said, "we want to track down the
terrorists. So it is a Hobson's choice. We'd like to be
able to help the F.B.I., and we know the local community in
a way they don't." 

But before he could have his officers conduct such
interviews, Chief Kerlikowske said, he would have to review
an ordinance prohibiting investigations to determine a
person's political or religious thinking. 

In Ann Arbor, Mich., the police chief, Daniel Oates, also
expressed reservations, saying he had not yet been
contacted about the interviews. Because the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor has international students who might
be on the list, Chief Oates said, "I have questions about
the propriety of this." 

How, he asked, "does someone end up on this
list?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/national/21PORT.html?ex=1007363873&ei=1&en=978a71dca117098f



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