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.

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!