Lodi Police: New state profiling rules won’t affect local policing

Law enforcement agencies in California will begin collecting data from stops to be reported to the California Department of Justice next summer, according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Becerra announced last week that the DOJ’s regulations for the data collection have been finalized and will be implemented in July 2018 under Assembly Bill 953, known as the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015.

The original proposed regulations were published by the DOJ in December 2016, and were revised after receiving comments from stakeholders such as the RIPA board, state and local law enforcement agencies and associations, civil rights groups, community organizations and members of academia during a 45-day comment period.

Although Lt. Sierra Brucia of the Lodi Police Department predicts that the new regulations will not affect interactions between officers and citizens, he does expect that the department will have to alter some of its procedures to comply with RIPA.

“I don’t think it’s going to change the way we interact with people. We’re still going to be polite and professional, we’re still going to enforce the law, we’re still going to issue citations. This is a new law, and we’re going to take a look at it and see how we can incorporate it to develop policies and procedures that comply with the law while taking into account the needs and concerns of our community,” Brucia said.

San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar is optimistic about RIPA, saying that the new regulations provide the county’s law enforcement agencies with new opportunities to increase public trust and strengthen relationships with their communities.

“Law enforcement agencies in San Joaquin County have routinely proven to be a collaborative partner, and are always looking for ways to improve public safety and enhance community trust, and this is another opportunity to do that. This act will help increase transparency and trust in law enforcement, and it’s another opportunity for us to show the work we are doing and what drives that work,” Verber Salazar said.

According to RIPA, officers will be required to collect the following information:

• Date, time, duration and location of the stop • Reason for the stop • Actions taken by the officer, if any • Result of the stop • The officer’s perception of the gender, race/nationality and approximate age of the person stopped

• Whether or not the officer perceives the person to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender

• Whether the person stopped has limited or no English fluency

• The officer’s perception or knowledge that the person has a disability

The complete list of regulations, including a list of all information that must be reported for each stop, is available online at