Black drivers in California are stopped and searched at higher rates than whites

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Black drivers in Los Angeles are disproportionately stopped and searched by police officers at nearly three times the per capita rate of white drivers, according to a new report by the state’s Department of Justice.

While Blacks make up about 6% of the population, they accounted for 15% of all traffic stops across California in the second half of 2018, “while White and Latino drivers were stopped at rates proportional to their populations,” cbs8.com writes.

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The report was released Thursday from the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, an entity reportedly comprised of leaders from law enforcement, community groups and attorneys who are responsible for advising the Attorney General’s Office about racial profiling and traffic stops.

The annual report is required under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015, and, according to The Huffington Post, these latest findings highlight the racial statistics of about “1.8 million traffic stops from July through December 2018 from the eight largest law enforcement agencies in the state,” the outlet writes — including jurisdictions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and California Highway Patrol.

Officers targeted Black people the most due to “reasonable suspicion” but found contraband on white drivers at a higher rate than any other racial group. Asians as a whole were stopped the least when compared to Middle Eastern or South Asian drivers.

“For the first time ever, Californians have comprehensive racial and identity data on each stop and search conducted by police officers at the largest law enforcement agencies in the state,” said Sahar Durali, co-chair of the advisory board that produced this report. “This is a critical first step in the fight to end racial profiling.”

Black folks were also more likely to be stopped and arrested at night.

“Anytime you have disparities that do not reflect the population, it’s concerning. so you have to look at that,” said local attorney Douglas Oden, a member of the statewide board overseeing the data collection.

“We always perceived there was racial profiling and we wanted a way to document that and to some extent, the statistics are bearing that out,” he added.  “I know growing up, I was stopped a number of times – five times in one night.”

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When asked to comment on Black drivers being disproportionately targeted for stops and searches, Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office said: “We’ll let the report, data and press release speak for themselves.”