Public Defender Workplace Proposes New Pointers for Police Stops in San Francisco

By David M. Greenwald

San Francisco, CA – In a comprehensive proposal for a directive, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office last week tabled a proposal for a directive to the Department of Police Accountability (DPA) aimed at ending racist traffic controls in San Francisco.

Churches across the country have sought to change the way policing works in the year since George Floyd was assassinated. So far, the city of Berkeley has taken one of the more far-reaching measures to prevent police from conducting low-level traffic controls, which are often purportedly. The San Francisco proposal would go one step further.

Low-level traffic controls are “often preferred,” the guidelines say, and “are used to harass black drivers and pedestrians.

“Almost every motorist or pedestrian, if observed long enough, will commit a minor traffic violation, ”the directive says. “A traffic control can then be a way for officers to examine the driver or passengers for evidence of otherwise unobtrusive criminal activity.”

And yet stops like this, ostensible stops, are perfectly legal and “sanctioned for more than 25 years” by the 1996 Supreme Court decision, Defense against the United States.

However, research has shown that while these types of traffic controls, while annoying and disruptive to colored communities, are largely ineffective in detecting actual crimes and can lead to escalation, violence and even police murders.

“Sandra Bland, Daunte Wright, Rayshard Wright, Philando Castile, Walter Scott and Sam Dubose should all still be alive. All were killed by the police because ordinary traffic controls that do not involve criminal offenses, ”wrote the public defender’s office.

From 2015 to 2019, there were at least 135 unnamed black men and women killed by police during such stops.

However, the data shows: “While traffic stops can be fatal for black men and women, traffic stops for civil servants are rarely fatal. A recent comprehensive study found that one officer died for each 6.5 million traffic controls, which undermines the accepted narrative that traffic controls are inherently dangerous for officers. “

Meanwhile, “low-level traffic surveillance is doing little to reduce crime in general. Studies show that police violations and offenses have hardly any verifiable effects on the reduction of crime, but bring considerable disadvantages with them. “

Frank Baumgartner, who studies police and police tactics, describes such traffic controls as “a strategy with a needle in a haystack” for the detection of crime and thus becomes “an unbelievable waste of effort”.

A recent study from Nashville in collaboration with the Stanford Computational Policy Lab (SCPL) came to a similar conclusion. That report found that while a disproportionate number of blacks were stopped at proactive traffic stops in Nashville, such stops rarely resulted in arrests or the recovery of drugs and weapons.

“Of 1,000 immovable violations, just over two percent (or 21) resulted in arrest or recovery of drugs or other contraband. Another 61 stops (6.1 percent) resulted in a non-drug charge, ”the SCPL report said.

The report concluded that as there are no benefits, all social costs should be avoided altogether.

The San Francisco Policy Document argues that “All in all, there is little logical connection between improving public safety and enforcing some low traffic laws. “

The SF report concludes: “Pretext stops harm relationships with communities, waste resources and, far too often, lead those already fearful of law enforcement to flee, leading to unnecessary violence or violence. The purported stops may lead to further investigations unrelated to the traffic stop – such as issues related to probation or probation status – that disproportionately affect color communities and have been banned in other local jurisdictions. “

What traffic controls do well, however, is “to smuggle people of color into the criminal justice system”.

You write, “Research shows that purported stops play an oversized role in ensuring that “driving while black” remains an unfortunate reality in the United States and increases the opportunities for racial profiling. “

In addition, “the failure of the court to convict it contributes to decisions like Words. Even with control of location, time of day, and other factors, blacks are still stopped and searched more often than whites in the same area because officials’visible clues to determine the likelihood of a crime. . . which lead to too much focus on young men of color. ‘”

San Francisco reflects the state and nation in overwhelming color communities through traffic controls.

The data on how blacks are affected is revealing:

• Blacks make up less than 5% of the population of San Francisco, but they account for 29% of all stops and 40% of all searches.
• In the first three months of 2020 prior to the on-site placement, SFPD officials stopped black San Franciscans at 5 times the frequency of white San Franciscans and searched them at 12 times the frequency of white San Franciscans.
• The Bayview district, which also has a high concentration of black residents, had the highest percentage of stops that resulted in searches.
• Blacks were searched 50% more often than whites because of “officer safety”.

In order to “minimize the disproportionate damage and communities of violence from color experiences due to the way SFPD officers enforce traffic laws,” there are three main suggestions.

First, eliminating the “quality of the hitchhiking”.

“Quality of the car” stops “focusing on what a car looks like and not on the behavior of the driver and is misdirected.” They find that the costs are “heavy” because cars are due to unpaid tickets, expired registrations and huge accrued fines to be towed away.

“The financial burden hits black households that are victims of a“ quality of the car ”stop,” they note.

Their solution is to ban searches and custodial arrests for license plate violations, registration processes that are less than six months old, broken taillights, tinted windows, and items hanging from rearview mirrors.

Second, they call for the abolition of low-level enforcement of jaywalking and similar violations, which research shows “excessive police violations like jaywalking have little demonstrable impact on reducing crime but instead have significant, overlooked drawbacks.”

They write, “Jaywalking and other common traffic violations are common among all racial / ethnic groups but can be used as a tool to interrogate, harass, or search an incarcerated person.”

They ask the police to “cease attitudes and arrests for” jaywalking “and other similar minor offenses, unless there are other apparent criminal activities likely to cause an officer to be arrested.”

Finally, they call for an end to “gratuitous searches at traffic controls”.

Unsubstantiated searches are “essentially random searches (at best) and are only marginally effective when compared to other readily available and less intrusive investigative tactics.”

Empirical data show that “searches for consent are largely ineffective”. They also “disproportionately affect blacks and browns. In 2019, before much of the city closed due to the pandemic, SFPD officials carried out more baseless searches of blacks and browns than whites.

They demand the abolition of the use of requests for consent in traffic controls.

—David M. Greenwald reporting