Road stops often seen as excuse to ‘go fishing’
1 in 5 halted by police in Texas for minor violation
Police describe traffic enforcement as a matter of public safety. Running red lights, distracted driving and speeding imperil all motorists.
“That’s why I designated a traffic safety officer — to try to slow people down,” Corrigan Police Chief Darrell Gibson told the Chronicle for a recent article about speed traps. “Every time there was a traffic death, it was because they were going very fast.”
Yet many stops have little to do with a driver’s dangerous behavior. Records from Texas’ 2,500 law enforcement agencies show that about 1 in 5 last year was for a so-called vehicle violation — a broken tail light, an expired registration, an insufficiently visible license plate.
Policing experts say such stops often are used not to make roads safer, but as a “pretext” for police to temporarily detain drivers so they can interview them and look inside their cars for contraband or other possible illegal activity. “When you’re stopping someone for absolutely trivial violations, it’s probably safe to say you’re looking for something greater,” said Patrick O’Burke, a former commander for the Texas Department of Public Safety who now trains police.
A Houston Chronicle analysis has identified the law enforcement agencies that conducted the highest rate of minor violation traffic stops last year, pulling over vehicles for equipment and paperwork infractions at a rate three and four times the state’s overall average. In La Vernia, a small city east of San Antonio where more than half of the police department’s traffic stops last year were for minor vehicle violations, Chief Bruce Ritchey said his officers often stop vehicles “as a courtesy” to alert drivers to broken equipment.
But he acknowledged they also take the opportunity to scope out vehicles and drivers for potential crimes. Drivers “may not have a driver’s license, they may not have insurance. They may have dope in the car,” he said. Using the traffic stops to investigate drivers “is like a gun and handcuffs; it’s another tool to keep the community safe.”
Several of the departments that made a high number of minor-violation stops also ranked at the top of Texas police departments conducting the most vehicle searches, the Chronicle’s examination showed.
In Kaufman County, where sheriff’s deputies last year conducted traffic stop searches at one of the highest rates in the state, records show about half of all the department’s stops were for socalled non-moving infractions. “We’re trying to find the criminal element,” Sheriff Bryan Beavers said. “The only way to find people (committing crimes) is when you stop them for a violation of law and do interviews on the side of the road.”
A review of six days’ worth of 2020 citations showed that of the 42 stops Kaufman deputies made, 11 were for license plate violations and nine were for defective lights. They also searched more than a quarter of all vehicles they stopped those days, records show, finding contraband twice.
That aligns with academic research into traffic stops concluding that most roadside investigations turn up no contraband or only small amounts. The searches also typically fall disproportionately on Blacks and Hispanics, according to a string of studies.
The minor stops can become combustible, as well. Since 2015, Texas police have shot 134 people during traffic stops, according to the Texas Justice Initiative, which tracks law enforcement use-offorce incidents.
In the wake of high-profile tragedies such as the deaths of Black motorists Sandra Bland (failure to signal a lane change), Daunte Wright (expired registration tag), and Philando Castile and Walter Scott (broken tail light), several states and municipalities have legally limited police traffic stops for minor violations. None are in Texas.
In Cleveland, north of Houston, police stopped Darius Wilson for “defective equipment/tail lights,” according to his Sept. 2, 2020, citation. “He said the tint on my back tail lights was too dark,” Wilson recalled.
After approaching the car, the officer said he smelled pot so he would have to perform a search. Wilson said he found a bag with “some crumbs” in it, dumped it on the street then let him go.
“It was B.S.,” he said.
Legal, but ‘not effective’
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 25 years ago that any traffic offense, no matter how minor, was a legally sufficient reason to stop and investigate motorists. With dozens of potential Transportation Code violations to choose from — the wrong color license plate light, mud flaps that are too short — attorneys say police can find a legal reason to pull over nearly any vehicle they encounter if they want a look inside.
Panola County sheriff’s deputies conducted minor vehicle violation stops at double the state average, records show. A review of citations from May 30 last year showed vehicles pulled over for headlights that were too bright, license plates that were too dark and expired registration tags.
“I could not begin to comment on how or why (deputies) do the number of stops or searches they do,” said Capt. Martin Hall. He said the county participated in several drug interdiction task forces, which could explain the department’s higher numbers.
Studies analyzing traffic stop-and-search patterns, however, have found that impromptu roadside investigations typically yield little payoff. Most discretionary searches, in which police either gain the driver’s permission to search or claim that have probable cause, turn up nothing. And only about half of those that do uncover contraband produce enough for police to make an arrest, said Frank Baumgartner, a University of North Carolina professor who studies traffic stops.
In East Texas, about 55 percent of all stops Henderson County sheriff’s deputies made in 2020 were for minor vehicle equipment or paperwork violations. Of the nearly three dozen traffic stops deputies conducted over three days last summer, citations show fewer than a third were for the sort of moving traffic violation that police point to as public safety threats.
Records show Henderson deputies last year conducted discretionary searches on about 1 in every 3 vehicles they pulled over — an unusually high number, experts say. Less than 1 in 5 of the searches resulted in an arrest.
The low hits rates, potential for violence and persistent racial imbalance of stop-and-searches have prompted a growing recognition that investigative traffic policing may not be worth the toll it takes on average citizens.
“It’s not effective as an investigative tool and it alienates the citizenry,” said Sarah Seo, a Columbia University law professor and author of “Policing the Open Road,” a legal history of investigative traffic stops. “Random stops just to go fishing don’t make sense.”
Limiting vehicle searches
Some jurisdictions have started drastically reining in the practice.
Two years ago, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled police in that state could no longer use minor vehicle violation stops to launch roadside investigations. Questioning of the driver must be “reasonably related” to the infraction, the justices wrote, with exceptions for obvious impairment such as slurred speech.
Virginia lawmakers last year passed a law that accomplished the same thing. While minor vehicle violations remain on the books, police may stop drivers only for more serious, public-safety violations such as speeding.
“There were so many vehicle equipment rules police used,” said Brad Haywood, executive director for Justice Forward Virginia, which pressed for the reform. Since the law went into effect in March, the number of Black motorists searched by police fell 40 percent, and 30 percent for white drivers.
Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., and Lansing, Mich., have all limited police use of equipment violations to conduct a stop. San Francisco’s district attorney has said his office wouldn’t accept most “possession of contraband crimes when the search stemmed from an infraction-related stop.” Philadelphia cited racial disparities as the reason for a new bill ordering police to stop using “secondary” vehicle equipment violations as a pretext to pull over motorists.
In the wake of Bland’s 2015 death, Texas, too, briefly considered putting limits on minor traffic stops.
Brian Encinia, a Department of Public Safety officer, pulled Bland over for failing to signal a lane change. A Los Angeles Times evaluation of his 1,500 traffic stops over the previous year showed most were for minor violations.
When Bland’s stop quickly escalated into a physical confrontation, Encinia arrested her for assaulting a police officer. She died by suicide in the Waller County jail three days later.
After a House interim report recommended tightening up pretextual stop standards in 2017, Rep. Garnet Coleman’s original version of the Sandra Bland Act called for limiting roadside investigations that start as minor traffic stops.
“It’s a fishing expedition,” he said in an interview. “It lends itself to racial profiling and all the other things we know happen bad during a traffic stop.”
Police objected, however. Lawmakers stripped the provision from the bill.