Category: Sac Police Department

driving while black and brown

Dan Allison2 Comments

On August 25, I attended the ACLU Defending Democracy Tour in Sacramento. The main topic of the evening was defending election integrity (Election Safeguarding), which as we all know is under attack by the felon Trump’s administration. But a highlight was the Driving While Black and Brown report (summary) about bias in the City of Sacramento Police Department against black drivers.

ACLU Driving While Black and Brown title

The data comes from AB 953 Racial Identity and Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015 database, which law enforcement must report to the California Attorney General’s Office. It is worth reading the report for details, data, and charts, but to summarize:

Blacks are stopped more often than whites, 33% of all stops while only 12% of population. Blacks are stopped more often for non-moving (in other words, not related to traffic safety, or much less related), than for moving violations, particularly in relation to white drivers. Blacks are much more likely than whites to be searched, but citations or arrests resulting from searches are much less likely than for white drivers. For Latino drivers, the disparities are less pronounced, but still present.

In other words, SacPD uses traffic stops of black and brown drivers for pretextual reasons, in an effort to find crime unrelated to driving, but if that is the purpose, it is failing.

I’ll make two speculations: 1) white drivers are much more likely to be in violation of traffic law and other laws than blacks, and 2) the continuance of such an ineffective pattern of traffic stops is intended to oppress blacks rather than increase public safety. The phrase ‘driving while black‘ is well known, and the pattern is also well documented across the US. Charles T. Brown coined the term ‘arrested mobility‘ to describe how law enforcement and other governmental actions suppress the ability of blacks to travel freely and safely.

The report only analyzed stops of motor vehicle drivers. It did not look at stops of walkers (pedestrians) and bicyclists and other users of micro-mobility. I suspect an analysis would reveal the same pattern.

The report makes the following Recommendation: These racial disparities are damning and paint a clear picture that the Sacramento Police Department uses minor traffic violations as a pretext to stop and search Black and Latino drivers. The ACLU of Northern California recommends that Sacramento adopt a policy prohibiting its police department from stopping drivers for non-safety related violations, such as tinted windows and failure to illuminate a license plate. Other California cities that have implemented such reforms have reduced racial disparities in traffic enforcement with no negative impact on public safety.

I agree!

concern about SacPD enforcement against bicyclists and walkers

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Update/correction: The grant was apparently approved by city council and awarded by OTS, so the program is in effect. Transportation and equity advocates are recommending that the city council advise city manager and police that the bicyclist and walker enforcement portions of the project not be carried out, and funds diverted to more effective uses.

In an April 14, 2025 SacBee article by Ariane Lange, she expressed concern about an upcoming Sacramento Police Department program to enforce and educate about dangerous roadway behaviors: Sacramento police will ticket cyclists and pedestrians with safety grant money. I had noted this grant earlier, and figured it was not focused on enforcement against bicyclists and walkers, but concern by Lange and the local transportation and equity organizations now has me concerned.

The the grant application text:

“Similar to the “Know Your Limit” program is the “Wait for the Walk” campaign. The activities include informal contact with citizens and enforcement operations where officers saturate high-density intersections, educate pedestrians about the dangers of jaywalking, and reinforce safe pedestrian habits. The message we spread is that pedestrian-related collisions can be avoided, and we should always use crosswalks and sidewalks and always wait for the walk signals. Pedestrians should stay off their phones and pay close attention to approaching traffic when crossing streets.”

Though this is not the major part of the grant, it is concerning. Law enforcement, including but not limited to SacPD, knee-jerk blames crashes involving bicyclists and walkers hit by motor vehicle drivers as the fault of the bicyclist or walker. Even when the driver is drunk or high, it is often still blamed on the victim. This world view is so deeply embedded in law enforcement thinking that most officers never overcome it. OTS (California Office of Traffic Safety) grants, which use pass-through money from NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), have often been used as stings against bicyclists and particularly walkers, targeting and ticketed them for behavior that may be against the law but does not endanger anyone. There is no guarantee that this grant will not be used in the same way.

The text uses the term ‘jaywalking’, which is a throughly repudiated term in the transportation advocacy community, indicating a deep-seated bias against people walking. Though crossing the street outside a crosswalk is still illegal in California, it is not an citable offense unless the walker interferes with traffic or otherwise endangers other people. The reason this law was passed is that police in Los Angeles, as well as other place, were targeting people crossing the street, for no other reason than they were people of color. Law enforcement bias shows up so often that the legislature spends a lot of time trying to improve law enforcement behavior, often with insufficient impact.

Common knowledge among transportation advocates, but apparently unknown among law enforcement, is that it is safer to cross the street between intersections because there are only one or two directions of motor vehicle traffic to pay attention to, whereas at intersections, there are sixteen different directions and possible threats to people walking. Certainly, ‘pedestrian related collisions’ can be avoided, but it is by controlling driver behavior and redesigning streets, not by enforcing against or ‘educating’ people walking.

Lastly, I’ll note that the bulk of the grant is towards overtime for law enforcement training, which should be happening under the regular (bloated) police department budget, not with grant money.

Apparently there is no city council meeting this week (today, April 15), so I don’t know when approval of the grant application will be on council agenda. The council should send this back to PD for a re-write that focuses solely on dangerous driver behavior, with automated enforcement, not with in-person enforcement which is frequently biases and frequently leads to escalation and harm to the person bicycling and walking.