Saying it would be a great tribute to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen whose death has sparked a national debate about race and self-defense laws, Governor Deval Patrick called on Bay State lawmakers Wednesday to pass a years-old bill on racial profiling along with a toughening of the state’s seat belt laws.
“I think that here in Massachusetts, if folks want to do something to honor this tragedy and to respond, the one thing they could do is take up the racial profiling proposal alongside the seat belt law we’ve been talking about a long time around here,’’ he said.
“Let’s get that passed. That’d be a great tribute.’’
For years lawmakers have considered proposals that would permit police to pull over drivers who are not wearing their seat belts.
Today, drivers can only be fined for neglecting to wear a seat belt if they are first pulled over for another offense. Proposals to make failure to buckle up a primary offense have often run into concerns that police will use the statute as a pretext for racial profiling.
Although police departments and their supporters reject the suggestion that there is profiling, critics of a primary seat belt law have demanded additional safeguards to prevent profiling.
According to aides, Patrick was alluding to a pair of bills that would codify a ban on racial profiling.
The bills, sponsored by state Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, Democrat of Jamaica Plain, and state Representative Byron Rushing, Democrat of Boston, would also create a data review panel to comb through police traffic data to analyze whether profiling is occurring.
Patrick mentioned the proposal in response to a question about four Massachusetts legislators who wore hooded sweatshirts Wednesday to show solidarity with the family of Martin, who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed.
Martin was killed by a volunteer neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, during a scuffle in which Zimmerman has said he fired in self-defense.