In response to concerns over the use of sobriety checkpoints to disproportionately search and impound the cars of undocumented immigrants, Pomona Habla/Speaks Community Coalition, a Pomona-based advocacy group for the Latino community, recently presented a proposal to the Pomona City Charter Review Commission to form a Police Commission. A subcommittee of the Commission is currently deliberating the proposal.

According to José Caldern, Professor of Sociology and Chicano/a—Latino/a Studies at Pitzer College, the purpose of the Commission would be “to receive complaints, bring those complaints out in the open, and to ensure there is action on those complaints. It can correct problems with enforcement before they become something so prominent that there are no solutions.”

According to Jim Sombrano, a lawyer who has worked with Pomona Habla, Pomona police department operated up to 90 percent of their sobriety checkpoints exclusively in south Pomona, which has a large immigrant population. Since undocumented immigrants do not hold driver licenses, their cars are impounded at these checkpoints. From there, they have to pay a $2,000 fine to retrieve their cars from the impound lot, on top of a fee for towing the car. If they cannot afford the fee, their car is auctioned off, with the proceeds going to the city. Pomona police officers receive overtime pay for the time they spend operating the checkpoints.

“Checkpoints under the guise of stopping drunk drivers have ultimately been used as a way of raising funds on the backs of immigrants,” Caldern said. “A lot of us were carrying out research and finding that upwards of 250 people were being stopped, with the large majority being immigrants who didn’t have driver licenses.”

In 2008, an average Pomona P.D. checkpoint had 50 or more officers present, Sombrano said. Checkpoints operated by other local cities, such as Claremont, generally have around a dozen officers, according to Sombrano. Additionally, Pomona P.D. was much more likely than Claremont P.D. to pursue drivers they saw driving away from the checkpoint.

The grants which the City of Pomona used to pay for the 2008 checkpoints stipulated that the checkpoints should not take place before 6 p.m., and recommended that they not take place until 9 p.m. However, Pomona P.D. frequently operated checkpoints during the afternoon, around the time that schools were getting out.

Pomona Habla was formed in 2008 after City Councilwoman Christina Carrizosa raised the issue of racial profiling at a City Council meeting. According to a press release by the group, its purpose is “to protest the disparate and negative impact of Pomona P.D. traffic checkpoints and impound policies on the Latino community in Pomona.” It is made up of approximately twenty community organizations, including Latino/a Round Table, LCLAA (Labor Council for Latin American Advancement), Pax Christi, Familias Unidas, and Inland Valley Peacemakers.

When it was formed, Pomona Habla had several goals, which included having the checkpoints moved to later times, allowing those with their cars impounded to call to a friend or family member with a driver license, and having the checkpoints moved away from schools.

Caldern noted that, in the two years since its inception, Pomona Habla has significantly affected the way these checkpoints are conducted. At first, he explained, activists disrupted the checkpoints by warning drivers when they were ahead. To do this, he added, student activists used technology to notify community members when a checkpoint was present.

“When a checkpoint happened, you would have a roving person to find it, and once that person found it they would call an entire network,” he said. “And that network still exists.”

Now, due in large part to the efforts by Pomona Habla, the Pomona police themselves post a lighted sign warning drivers when a checkpoint is near.

Protestors also succeeded in pushing back the checkpoints to 6 p.m. and then to 9 p.m., and in having them moved away from schools. They also secured the right of those with confiscated vehicles to phone for a ride home.

Pressure by Pomona Habla has also changed the frequency with which checkpoints are held. According to Sombrano, in 2008, 27 checkpoints were held. In 2009, this number was reduced to 18, and in 2010 it was 12. As of now, there are six checkpoints planned for 2011.

“Their numbers really went down… from stopping 250 [people per checkpoint] to less than ten,” Caldern said. “This really was an example of how a coalition of students and community-based organizations can affect policy.”

However, he added, there is still a lot of work to be done.

For one, Pomona Habla supporters would like to see passed a recent bill introduced by State Senator Gill Cedillo, which would stop the impounding of cars of unlicensed drivers at checkpoints.

“If we had that in Pomona, it would kill the tremendous amount of funds the towing companies are making,” Caldern said.

A bill to allow undocumented workers to have driver licenses is also in the works. According to Caldern, it has previously been approved in both the Assembly and the Senate, but has been blocked by the governor.

“We’re going to have to put pressure on Governor Brown,” he said.

In an effort to convince the City Charter Review Commission to approve the police commission, Pomona Habla points to the number of complaints, claims, and lawsuits brought against Pomona P.D. each year. According to Sombrano, in the past five years there have been around 250 claims or lawsuits filed.

As stated in Pomona Habla’s press release, “[These] are strong evidence of the underlying fundamental issues and general distrust by residents toward the Pomona Police Department.”

The City Charter Review Commission is made up of fifteen citizens from Pomona. Each member of the Pomona City Council appoints two people to the committee, while the Mayor appoints three. The commission convenes only about once every 15 years, and last met in 1998.

According to Mark Gluba, Assistant to the City Manager of Pomona, once the subcommittee has evaluated the proposal it will make a recommendation to the commission as a whole. The commission then deliberates and votes on the proposal.

However, a commission in and of itself would not solve anything, Caldern warned. “Its effectiveness will really be based on whether there is good representation from the community, especially the underrepresented community.”