Safety Stops Draw Doubts

But at most of the traffic safety checkpoints conducted by Keegan's mobile force and redeployment units, officers record the personal information of those who violate the law and those who don't.

Officers look for such things as valid driver's licenses and inspection stickers. To avoid accusations of racial profiling, officers usually stop every car, every other one or every third one.

The officers jot down motorists' information on a file-card-size form called a PD-76, which is recorded into the database. The forms also are used for routine traffic stops, and the information will also be used for a racial profiling study, Ramsey said.

Police in Baltimore also record information on nonviolators who are stopped at traffic safety checkpoints. Police in such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago said they either do not have traffic safety checkpoints or do not collect such data.

D.C. homicide Detective Paul Regan said the collection of such data has been "a great intelligence tool."

Recently, Regan said, he was able to identify a potential witness in the slaying of a 27-year-old man in Southeast Washington by using the checkpoint data.

One recent night, D.C. police Sgt. Karl Jackson supervised a traffic safety checkpoint off Good Hope Road SE on a block where a woman had been fatally stabbed days before. He said he has mixed feelings about the practice.

"There's pros and cons," he said. "If you're getting the information from someone who hasn't done anything wrong, I don't think it should be put in the database.

"On the other hand," Jackson said, "crime is so bad and technology is so advanced that a person's name in the database might help solve a crime."