San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MAKE IT STOP
Activists disturbed by evidence of over-policing in communities of color involving disproportionate stops, seizures and use of force are calling for a new approach in San Diego, advocating for a new ordinance that would end so-called ‘pretext stops,’ ‘con
Biased policing and over-policing of communities of color can have deadly consequences. Numerous studies have provided clear evidence that biased policing is not only a national crisis, but a serious problem in San Diego.
For example, San Diego police officers stop Black people and Pacific Islanders at far greater rates than White people. Police are far more likely to search and use force against Black people and Latinos than White people. The same is true for people with disabilities and those who are LGBTQ.
Halfhearted measures are not sufficient for the systematic harms being caused by police. The San Diego Police Department’s recently released “consent search” policy is an example of this. San Diego can and should lead the nation in addressing biased policing by passing the Preventing Over-policing through Equitable Community Treatment (PROTECT) ordinance. PROTECT would prohibit officers from conducting “pretext stops,” “consent searches” and stops for equipment violations. PROTECT also establishes accountability for officers who violate the ordinance. PROTECT is decidedly bold in its approach, borrowing from measures enacted in other jurisdictions while offering even stronger protection for fundamental rights.
A pretext stop occurs when law enforcement stops a vehicle because of a minor traffic violation in order to investigate unrelated offenses, often without any objective reason to believe the person stopped committed more serious offenses. These stops empower officers with vast discretion that is prone to both overt and implicit racial and identity bias.
Officers conduct “consent searches” when they would ordinarily be prohibited from conducting a search. They evade privacy protections by asking for “permission” to search. These “requests” to search are commonplace during pretext stops. SDPD’S new policy requiring officers to notify people of their rights when seeking consent to search is no substitute for PROTECT. The policy does not curtail consent searches nor racial profiling. Instead, it allows officers to search even when consent is only “implied.” Officers can conduct “consent” searches of property like backpacks and cell phones, and even one’s person, including DNA and fingerprints. The policy continues to encourage officers to engage in fishing expeditions.
Informing people of their rights will not address the racially disparate ways stops and searches are performed. Police stops are inherently coercive and intimidating, and people may feel compelled to consent to an officer carrying a gun regardless of whether they’re told they can refuse.
PROTECT would reduce police interactions that research shows have no public safety benefit. It would also guard against profiling and strengthen police accountability. Pretext stops and consent searches give police license to stop and investigate people for the flimsiest reasons. They result in people of color being stopped too frequently, with terrifying or even fatal consequences.
In March, a 9-year-old boy named Anthony Fuller Jr. was ordered at gunpoint out of his father’s car here in San Diego, during a traffic stop. Anthony Jr. said the incident was “traumatizing … I thought that they were going to shoot me ... they were pointing the gun directly at my face.” Some recent police killings started as pretext stops. Philando Castile, a 32-year-old Black man, was ostensibly pulled over in a Minneapolis suburb, for a broken
Nothing requires police to conduct “consent” searches, which are consistently abused by police against communities of color.
taillight in 2016, before being killed in front of his girlfriend and their 4-yearold daughter. In April, Daunte Wright, a 20-yearold Black man, was killed by an officer who stopped him for expired registration or, maybe, for an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror in Brooklyn Center, Minn. These cases are not aberrations. Last year alone, police killed 121 people during traffic stops in the United States. Ending this kind of policing is literally a matter of life and death.
San Diego needs to expand on the example set by other jurisdictions. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has de-emphasized traffic stops, and they have declined by 90 percent in that city in the past five years. Virginia enacted legislation reducing pretext stops late last year. Closer to home, Berkeley prohibited officers from making lowlevel traffic stops in February.
One defense for pretext stops is that they don’t violate the Constitution. But harmful policing doesn’t have to be unconstitutional to be a problem. The Constitution and state law provide minimum rights, but they don’t prevent states or cities from strengthening those protections. Cities have the power to determine how to allocate law enforcement resources and prioritize enforcement. As Nashville, Virginia and Berkeley have demonstrated, nothing requires police to stop people for low-level traffic offenses or conduct “consent” searches, both of which are consistently abused by police against communities of color. In short, nothing prevents the city from enacting PROTECT.
San Diego can build on the work of other cities by passing this groundbreaking legislation. Community calls to eliminate biased policing should no longer be ignored. It is time for our elected officials to answer them.