In Lake Worth Beach last September, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper pulled over Jose Hernandez Alvarez and detained him after federal immigration authorities said he lacked legal status to be in the U.S.
Trooper John Petrofsky identified the man from El Salvador as “white,” according to his citation and arrest report.
WLRN reviewed 107 traffic cases in Palm Beach County involving Petrofsky — who patrols a majority-Hispanic city — and found he did not identify a single “Hispanic” driver during a nearly one-year period ending in January.
A local immigration advocate and a national policing expert say the failure to accurately identify a defendant’s race or ethnic origin makes it difficult to independently monitor alleged racial profiling by law enforcement agencies…