Michael Rushford
The 5 member Los Angeles Police Fee has introduced a brand new coverage, efficient instantly, which prohibits officers from making visitors stops for violations like failure to sign for a flip, a damaged taillight or expired registration, except the officer can current proof {that a} extra critical crime has occurred. Kevin Rector of the Los Angeles Occasions reports that the brand new coverage, which ignores state legislation, is supposed to stop “pretextual stops” the place an officer pulls over a suspicious car for a minor visitors violation in an effort to decide if the driving force is at the moment wished, or is carrying an unlawful firearm or medication. It’s authorized underneath state legislation for police to drag over a car for a visitors violation and search for proof of a extra critical crime. In line with Fee President William Briggs there “isn’t any knowledge that anybody can level to that establishes pretextual stops curtail violent crime in our metropolis.” Briggs and others supporting the coverage mentioned it was wanted to cut back racially biased policing.
When pressed for knowledge supporting the brand new coverage, Briggs reported that of the 20,000 car stops within the primarily black and Hispanic Newton Division in 2021, 64% had been Hispanic and 33% had been black. Lower than 10% of the automobiles had contraband and fewer than 4% had firearms. So, a lot of the car stops for visitors offenses in a closely black and Hispanic district had black and Hispanic drivers and through 2,000 of them police discovered medication, and in one other 800 they confiscated unlawful weapons. That’s “knowledge that establishes pretextual stops curtail violent crime.” Taking 800 weapons off the road in a single metropolis district is a really efficient method to scale back armed violence. What Briggs doesn’t inform us is what number of automobiles had been being pushed by individuals with out a legitimate license? What number of drivers or passengers had warrants out for his or her arrest? How lots of the automobiles had been stolen? The Oklahoma Metropolis bomber was caught in a pretextual visitors cease. Thank goodness Oklahoma police weren’t prohibited from pulling him over.
Los Angeles is awash with violent crime, burglaries, carjackings and assaults and the Police Fee is stopping police from stopping suspicious automobiles violating visitors legal guidelines. What may presumably go flawed?
It’s time to exchange the commissioners.