1993 – The racial disparity in neighboring Illinois cities

60 minutes rewind this is a tale of two cities side-by-side 1 predominantly white and middle-class the other almost exclusively black and poor it's a tale first told by a small newspaper in the virtually all-white community of Belleville Illinois about what happened to blacks from neighboring East st. Louis when they came to town we first heard about it when the small newspaper won several major journalism awards and began losing a lot of subscribers Belleville Illinois is a typical Midwestern community filled with civic pride it has annual parades good schools strong stable neighborhoods and it's one of the last places in America where you can still find the original golden arches in many ways Belleville is a picture of white middle-class contentment right over there on the other side of this highway is East st. Louis Illinois it is 98 percent black and almost every one of its forty thousand residents is receiving welfare or some other form of public assistance it also has the highest per-capita murder rate in the country higher the New York City or Washington DC it's in the top ten as far as being most crime-ridden city in the country it's in the top ten that's not my fault I just don't want that filter and over into this city Bob Hearst is belleville Chief of Police and like a lot of people in town he was born and raised in East st. Louis that was before white flight in this before blacks began moving in the East st. Louis during the 60s and before whites began moving out to Belleville I don't want a Belle Belle to become another he's saying listen neither does the Belleville residents that fear is so widespread that a few years ago when a crime wave swept the wealthy Signal Hill area of Belleville residents got together and spent their own money to build a wrought iron gate right on the edge of the city this is he st. Louis right over here on the other side of this road yes sir it is yes if I lived in East st. Louis and I was black I'd look at this and I'd say message is pretty clear those P don't want me over here I would probably feel that way does that bother you no sir I didn't put it up but you approve up I I don't disapprove of it blacks in East st. Louis got the message that they aren't welcome in Belleville a long time ago but Belleville is hard to avoid many blacks from East st. Louis worked there and it's the county seat where they have to pay taxes get marriage licenses and conduct all manner of public business and they have long suspected that the all-white Belleville Police Department had an unwritten policy designed to discourage them from coming to town it's a known fact anything Louis don't ride in Belleville after don't well you will be pulled over especially if it's a black meals that are involved Constance Massey was giving to male friends of hers or ride home to East st. Louis after work when they were pulled over by a Belleville policeman said who is that in the car with you I've seen beer I said we don't drink sir and he said what kind of drug she got in there and they searched dusty threw us up against the car patted us down took my backseat out of my car but police didn't find any drugs or alcohol why do you think you stopped him because I was black definitely because I was black and I had two black gentleman in the did he say anything to you they lead you to that conclusion definitely because he asked me what was I doing up in Belleville like I wasn't good enough to be at all reporters at the Belleville News Democrat the city's local paper had long heard stories about police harassment of blacks but in 1991 managing editor Greg Edwards says the paper received a tip from a former policeman that seemed to confirm all those rumors if you were black and came to Belleville there was a good chance you were going to be stopped questioned maybe ticketed for a minor violation maybe arrested and taken to jail after a four-month investigation that involved dozens of interviews with anonymous police sources and motorists and after going through more than a hundred and seventy-five thousand traffic tickets the news Democrat was able to document that Belleville Police Chief Bob Hurst had organized a special four-man patrol to target and Harris black motorists from East st. Louis some of them had been stopped in not ticketed simply questioned what are you doing here others were handcuffed tossed into a police car one woman told us that she was pregnant had handcuffs put on her and manned her arms but behind her back and she was shoved roughly into a police car others told us that there were frequent references to them to them when they were stopped as that sort of language the papers big break came when reporter Carolyn Tufts stumbled upon an important piece of information Melville's Police Department writes the drivers race on the top of every ticket at issues so she was able to segregate all the tickets written to Black's and when she compared that information to the four men assigned to the unit this is what she discovered 75% of all tickets written by these four men were to blacks and we have a seven percent population of blacks and Valvo so the disparity there is is striking if not alarming they were going out looking for blacks no other way to interpret that information I don't think so tuff says that blacks were cited mostly for non-moving violations like driving with an expired license or without insurance violations that you wouldn't be able to detect unless you'd actually stopped someone and pulled the right and from police sources she learned something else for every person that was pulled over and ticketed this unit pulled a handful of her and didn't ticket him the idea was to let the black people know that they weren't welcome about them there's no way we targeted blacks to keep the amount of Belleville no way and no officer on this Police Department was ever issued an order like that from me chief Hurst doesn't deny he organized a special patrol unit during that crime wave several years ago on Signal Hill but he insists his orders were to target all suspicious-looking motorists black and white but the more he talked the more he seemed to contradict himself first he told us what the State Police told him the Signal Hill area was being infiltrated by the black gangs ought to be seamless and there they would come up here in order to be initiated into the gang and either steal a car break into house rape Rob home invasion whatever and that any black males that were driving around the Signal Hill area were potential suspects that's correct because they were black because they were in that area and because they were black yes sir you seem to be saying that being a black male and driving a car and the white area of the Signal Hill is probable cause to believe that they're going to commit a crime not not necessarily so if if there's something wrong with their car we would stop him or if there was more than one in the car we would stop them but not every black so that's a member that's correct but you're saying that essentially we're stopping all the blacks not all of them no we didn't stop all of them we stopped most of them if the two black males riding in a car if they were in that area it turns out street gangs from East st. Louis had nothing to do with the raping and robbing it was all the work of one man and he had no connection to the street gangs neither does Zac Conklin he's a district manager for Texaco oil in Belleville who's been stopped by police there several times he said anything that made you believe that he stopped you cuz you were black Tim and get back down that way what do you mean by that get back down to our ski st. Louis that's what he meant by that last year he was cited for three non moving violations including driving with an expired license and no automobile insurance charges that were untrue and later dropped now he uses back roads when he drives to Belleville it's happened more to men once this happened a few days before this we had my son in the car and I got pulled over for no apparent reason on did my son ask me daddy why did they pull you over and what are you telling I told him I don't know and he goes again why did they pull you over daddy and you know what can I tell my five-year-old son you know I bought dinner I have to tell you chief I was a black male I think I would consider it Harris Minh if all I was doing was driving through a white neighborhood in Belleville and I got stopped by the police every time I went through well that's that's your opinion and you're entitled to your opinion but if you lived in that area you would want the police department the Sheriff's Office and the State Police would be doing something about it and that's what we did and the people of Belleville seemed glad he did chief Hurst has never been more popular he keeps a crime out I don't know why the news me is always on to him about the blacks if it weren't for Robert Hurst and we would have all the crime and and we might as well just move down the hill do you say Louis right right I agree I think that st. Louis has a definite problem and we don't want it here what are you talking about when you say you want to keep these st. Louis out or keep it out are you saying what you want to keep out as black people no we want to keep the crime rate out the crime problems the drug problems the murders the burglaries the car thefts that's what we don't want involve oh I live in East st. Louis how can they distinguish me from somebody else who may commit a crime they have to treat me the same way that they would treat any other citizen Reverend Johnny Scott is president of the n-double a-c-p Z st. Louis chapter we interviewed him along with the urban league's local representatives James Buford the fact of the matter is there was a crime wave people in Belleville were terrified in the police chief's job he says was to try and crack down on it that's the cop out but what's he supposed to do what's the Chief of Police is to investigate and prosecute under the law of the land when White's commit crimes in Belleville does that mean whites are then run out of Belleville that happened in Dodge City in the Wild West they have techniques and strategies within the law without harassing without violating citizens rights and what kind of a reaction did the news Democrat get for performing what it thought was a public service well it won a lot of major newspaper Awards and a lot of grief back in Belleville the reaction was almost totally against the news Democrat not against the policemen who were doing the ticketing or against the city administration that allegedly ordered it but against us what they were saying was you may think we've got a problem we don't think we've got a problem some of them said exactly that and some of them said a lot more the newsroom was flooded with angry calls and threats local businesses pulled their ads and more than a thousand readers canceled their subscriptions a huge number for such a small paper but it kept on digging they're there to write stories make news and the hell with what happens to the community Belleville Mayor Richard Brower really hated the article about city hiring practices in its entire history a hundred and seventy-five years Belleville has never had a black employee didn't that strike you as strange you've been Mary here since 1979 that's right no black faces in City Hall no you never noticed it no I never noticed it Jackie did it a black employee is that what you said we needed a black employee no we have we don't we didn't have any quota systems here anything like that no we didn't have one since the news Democrat ran that story the city of Belleville finally hired its first black employee a sanitation worker he was one of two finalists the other finalists being my nephew and he was hired my nephew wasn't is that upset you know it doesn't accept me I don't have any problem with it I don't have any problem it my sister probably does but I don't the city's decision to finally hire a black employee was not exactly voluntary it was done under the threat of legal action by the Illinois State Department of Human Rights velvel settled out of court agreeing to hire an affirmative action officer and to send the entire Belleville Police Department to racial sensitivity training including chief first although some might say it doesn't seem to have done much good in my own heart and mind I know I've done what's right for the people of the city of Belleville and if I had it to do over again I would do it again tomorrow the same way Steve I guarantee you

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 443,676

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Steve Kroft, racial disparity, race, Belleville, St. Louis, Illinois

Id: oWWU2_LWFqM

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 07 2020