Yet in the rest of the city, only 41 percent of respondents agreed that profiling was a problem.

The results show an inverse relationship between the two areas of the city with the highest concentration of blacks and Latinos and the rest of the city. Area B2 encompasses all of Roxbury and parts of Dorchester while area B3 includes Mattapan and parts of Dorchester.

Both areas together form the core of Boston’s communities of color where black and Latino residents apparently have interactions with police widely at odds with those of white residents.

Police spokeswoman Beverly Ford said the department has no explanation for the differences.

“We really don’t know why there’s a discrepancy and we’re looking further to see what is causing this discrepancy,” she said. “We’re going to find out what’s happening in these neighborhoods.”

In an effort to shed light on the survey results two Banner reporters conducted random interviews with black and Latino Boston residents, asking them to describe their attitudes toward police and their experiences.

Of the 14 respondents interviewed by the Banner, most reported police behavior ranging from profiling to brutality.

Bob T., a South End resident, said blacks are often detained and searched without reasonable suspicion.

“We tend to get questioned more and stopped more,” he said. “They use a cover-up. They say you fit the description of a suspect, but they never say what the description is.”

But Roslindale resident Eddie Neal, who spent ten years working with teens in Dorchester, said police in the black community are not as bad as their reputation.

“Bad information spreads quicker than good information,” he said. “I’m sure there are bad officers, but there are good officers too. A few bad cops spoil it for all the rest.”

Bad police work does make headlines. Last week the Boston Herald ran a series on wrongful convictions, highlighting the cases of some of the 22 men who have served long prison sentences in the last two decades for crimes they did not commit. Most of the men were black.

The series shone a spotlight on detective Daniel M. Keeler, who closed more than 200 murder cases during his 12 years on the homicide squad. Several of his convictions were overturned, suggesting police work that is flawed at best.

Jamarhl Crawford, who heads the local chapter of the New Black Panther Party, said police shootings also play a major role in public perception of police conduct.

“People in the black community have witnessed cops shooting minorities, while you rarely see or hear of white kids getting shot by the police,” he said.

Crawford was on Humboldt Ave. last year after detective Keeler shot a fleeing suspect whom eye-witnesses said was unarmed.

While there is no shortage of news stories covering police misconduct, many of the people interviewed by the Banner said their perceptions were formed by their own experiences with the police, not just by what they read..

George Foskey, a high school student, said since he was arrested as a suspect in an assault and battery case two years ago and brutalized by Boston police officers, his opinion of the police has been negative.

“I was on the ground,” he said. “I got kicked in the face and pistol-whipped three times. Now when I see a police officer, I think about that. If I hit someone, I’d be arrested for assault and battery. What they did to me was the same exact thing.”

The experiences cited by the interviewees apparently are not uncommon for black and Latino men, particularly teenagers. Claudio Martinez, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force, recalled a recent meeting between representatives of the Boston Police, State Police, MBTA police, School Police and Boston Housing Authority police.

“The kids had nothing but bad experiences,” Martinez said. “It’s very rare to hear of positive interactions, particularly with the young people. I think police need more training than they are getting on how to interact with the city’s population of color.”

The fact that the police force remains more than 70 percent white doesn’t help, Martinez added.

“When they’re deployed in a mostly minority neighborhood, it looks like an occupying force,” he commented.

To be fair, Boston Police officers are not the only force that interacts with teens. MBTA police officers routinely arrested teenagers for offenses as minor as trespassing under a zero tolerance policy adopted by former MBTA Police Chief Thomas O’Loughlin.

Pepe Rodriguez and Victor Germain — both high school students — who said they were chased by an officer from the Downtown Crossing station after they failed to board a train, did not know there was a difference between Boston police and the transit cops.

Nor did either teen know about the MBTA’s zero tolerance policy. Asked why they were chased, Germain said, “I think they chased us because they wanted to harass us. They can arrest you for anything.”

Denise Gonsalves, executive director of the Cape Verdean Community Task Force, said community-oriented programs go a long way in fostering batter relations between the community and police.

“There are a number of programs with youth community service officers,” she said. “The police department needs to stay visible.”

(Banner intern Janel Knight contributed to this story)