San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
S.F. weighs policy that could change policing
Plan aims to curtail racial profiling in traffic stops
San Francisco is weighing whether to bar officers from stopping drivers for a variety of low-level violations, a move that would fundamentally shift policing — if it survives a bitter debate now playing out mostly behind the scenes in a city divided over public safety issues.
Under a proposed policy designed to reduce racial profiling, city police officers could no longer pull over motorists for infractions including throwing trash from a
window, driving without registration tags, sleeping in a vehicle, failing to signal a turn or stopping in a no-parking zone.
Cyclists could not be stopped for riding on a sidewalk. And during vehicle, bicycle or pedestrian stops for more serious traffic violations, officers could in most cases not ask people probing questions nor ask them if they agree to a search.
The draft policy, proposed by members of the city’s Police Commission, is intended to curtail pretextual stops, a practice that has drawn controversy nationally in recent years in which officers use relatively minor infractions — often traffic violations — to probe for guns, drugs and other larger crimes.
The draft, first released in May, states that officials have been discussing “the pros and cons of including a list of offenses for which stops are banned.” The proposal would not completely get rid of the listed offenses; a driver who was caught doing something more serious like speeding, for example, could also be ticketed for littering once pulled over.
Underlying the proposal is data from San Francisco and other California cities showing continued racial disparities in police stops, particularly for lower-level violations, with Black people far more likely to be stopped than white people.
The policy’s champions believe that taking such stops off the table will help reverse the city’s imbalances, while critics, including many rank-andfile officers, fear the changes could hamstring cops and make San Francisco less safe.
Latest flash point
In all, commissioners have selected for discussion 18 common, minor offenses police sometimes use to make contact with an individual, including driving with a broken headlight or taillight or making certain unlawful U-turns.
The idea of listing offenses that could no longer be the basis of a San Francisco police stop is the central point of contention between commissioners and police officials, who argue there is value in enforcing even minor infractions.
But perhaps more farreaching are potential changes to what officers can do if they properly stop an individual but have no evidence of a serious crime. They would no longer be able to ask probing questions, such as asking where a person is headed or what they’re doing in an area. And they would no longer be able to request a voluntary search.
City leaders, including Mayor London Breed and Police Chief Bill Scott, have publicly supported the broad contours of the plan — and its goal. But behind the scenes, a debate has unfolded over both the substance of the proposal and the process used to craft it.
The subject has become a flash point in tensions between Breed and one of her appointed police commissioners, Max CarterOberstone, an attorney who is spearheading the policy reforms. CarterOberstone was among dozens of mayoral appointees who were recently identified as having been asked by Breed to sign undated resignation letters — letters that Breed has been forced to rescind.
It’s also the latest focus in the broad debate over what public safety should look like in San Francisco, a city that has been on the cutting edge of the national police reform movement but has come to be seen by many residents — including those who recalled progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin — as a place of lawlessness.
“There’s a lot of people who are very supportive and want to make the policy even more expansive; there are people who would like to make it less ambitious, and everything in between,” Carter-Oberstone said in an interview.
“I think that our goal on the commission should be to enact a policy that will redirect officers away from low-level traffic stops that are proven to be ineffective at preventing crime,” he said, “so that officers can focus on all of the great work that they’re already doing that we know is keeping people safe.”
National trend
Cities including Los Angeles, Berkeley, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia have passed measures to limit pretextual stops, and these policies vary: In Los Angeles, city officials barred pretextual stops but do not prohibit officers from pulling people over for minor violations; they just can’t use those infractions to fish for other crimes.
Meanwhile, some cities are exploring whether to turn over traffic enforcement to unarmed civilian staffers, which could save money and limit the potential for a violent encounter — but also raises questions about leniency.
In discussions about pretextual stops, the central question is whether police officers can be trusted to be fair when
“I think that our goal on the commission should be to
enact a policy that will redirect officers away from low-level traffic stops that are proven to be ineffective at
preventing crime.”
Max Carter-Oberstone, Police Commission member
pursuing hunches and suspicions they develop about people on the street.
In a case study presented by Police Commission members Carter-Oberstone, Cindy Elias and Kevin Benedicto, police in 2019 located drugs in 3.5% of stops for driving without license plates, and guns in 0.4% of the stops. No contraband was found in 85% of the stops.
Benedicto said in an interview that the proposal would free up officers to focus on more serious crimes and traffic violations.
“It’s very easy to say, ‘We caught 15 guns in the last few years, and now 15 fewer guns are on the street,’ ” Benedicto said, referring to a common argument against the policy. “I reject the premise of that, because we don’t know that higher-value investigations, and being able to focus on those, couldn’t net 20 guns.”
A Chronicle analysis of San Francisco police stops over the past four years found that Black drivers were 4.4 times more likely to be stopped than white people for any traffic violation and 10.5 times more likely to be stopped for pretextual reasons.
Among the most common reasons for a pretextual stop was the improper display of a license plate, in which Black people were 16 times more likely to be pulled over than white people.
“You shouldn’t be stopping anybody for a taillight or a brake light ... or because they have a dice hanging up in front of their windshield,” said Phelicia Jones, a San Francisco activist who focuses on Black communities and is helping to amend the policy. “It’s racial profiling through traffic stops.”
Objection from cops
Carter-Oberstone said he wanted to craft a policy that removed the subjectivity of pretextual stops — making clear what police could and couldn’t do. But some city officers who have read the draft policy in recent months fear they are about to be stripped of important powers on the streets.
The Chronicle analyzed four years of data to determine how city police are using some of the most common violations that could be barred under the policy. Between mid-2018 and mid-2022, officers made at least 29,300 stops using codes for these offenses, out of a total of 142,500 total traffic stops.
“So long as the traffic stops are conducted to promote traffic safety, they should be allowed,” one traffic officer, Crispin Jones, wrote in a recommendation following a recent working group meeting on the matter.
In his own letter, San Francisco Police Officer Haven Latimore recounted a stop he made earlier this year near his Union
Square beat after he noticed a parked car with generic dealer plates. This is a red flag for officers, he said, because people committing crimes will often remove or switch out plates to avoid identification.
After approaching the driver and running his license, Latimore discovered the man had a felony warrant out for his arrest since early 2020, for allegedly raping a person who was incapacitated.
“Under the proposed changes to (the policy) I would be prohibited from taking action on the traffic violation that led to this arrest,” Latimore wrote.
In a later interview with The Chronicle, Latimore said, “One of the main reasons we do traffic stops is, of course, traffic safety. But also, with that, you can find people like I did, who have serious warrants and need to be brought by force into court to face their charges.”
Police Chief Scott, who has repeatedly voiced his support for ending pretextual stops — a view not shared by some rank-andfile officers — proposed a different strategy. Similar to the Los Angeles policy, Scott recommended the commission remove all of the enumerated bans, and “categorically prohibit all traffic stops that are done for pretextual purposes.”
Scott said this was the “way to truly mitigate the disparity seen in traffic enforcement.” He said there were “public safety circumstances when all of the violations currently listed in this policy could be relevant and necessary for enforcement.”
At the same time, some local activists are pushing for more infractions to be listed.
In a letter to the commission, activists with the Coalition to End Biased Stops proposed barring additional codes that “effectively criminalize poverty or contribute to persistent racial disparities in stops and searches.” Members of the coalition include the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the homelessness nonprofit group Glide, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
Letters from the public have reflected a split.
“This unwarranted policy would lead to more traffic accidents, more shootings and more crime,” one resident wrote. Another said police “should not be wasting time on traffic stops that do not improve public safety and harm community trust and cohesion.”
Mayoral stalling?
Some of the most fraught discussions about the policy proposal have been rooted in how input from city residents is being incorporated. Some San Franciscans in communities of color feel shut out, said Sheryl Evans Davis, who has put together listening sessions for people to weigh in.
“It’s something we hear from folks: ‘We’re always secondary in the process, even when it directly impacts us,’ ” said Evans Davis, executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
In a series of heated email and text communications obtained by reporters through public records requests, Breed aides repeatedly scolded police commissioners for what they described as a lack of attention to community engagement.
Commissioners denied the assertion. In a text to one of Breed’s aides, Carter-Oberstone said police were using the community engagement complaint as a stall tactic — and he told The Chronicle that he felt the mayor’s office had helped them to delay the effort.
He said the behind-thescenes maneuvering amounted to an attempt to delay or derail the policy without taking public accountability for it.
“If the mayor’s office opposes this policy proposal, or the department opposes this policy proposal, that’s perfectly reasonable,” Carter-Oberstone told The Chronicle. “But they should make the case for why it’s not a good policy publicly. And let the public decide who has the better argument. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.”
Breed would not comment for this story. Her spokesperson released a statement saying the mayor “supports fair and just policing . ... When such important changes are under discussion, it is the right thing to do to develop policies in partnership with the communities most impacted by those policies.”
A working group consisting of police, civil rights activists and subject matter experts are continuing to review the policy and suggest changes to it. Carter-Oberstone, Elias and Benedicto will amend the proposal before bringing it to the full commission for a vote, where it needs a simple majority to pass.
Carter-Oberstone said he didn’t want to comment yet on how the policy would take recommendations into account, but said commissioners have received “a lot of really highquality feedback” and that there was “no doubt that the policy will be substantially amended.”