Sacramento police have been searching Black and Latino drivers at a much higher rate than white drivers, according to a report published on Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. The report looked at stops from 2023 to 2024.
The majority of stops of Black drivers were for equipment or non-moving violations such as tinted windows and improperly lighted license plates.
In 90% of searches police officers didn’t seize anything from the drivers. Allyssa Victory, a senior staff attorney at the Northern California ACLU, said that stops like these are a waste of police time and money.
“This is also an extension of racial profiling, right? That people are being stopped simply because of their race,” Victory said. “That these stops are being used as pretext, as unlawful reasons to question to search further that are unrelated to the initial reasons for these traffic stops.”
The report draws its data from data reported by Sacramento Police Department to the Attorney General’s Office in compliance with the 2015 Racial Identity and Profiling Act, which also outlaws racial profiling.
In a statement, the Sacramento Police Department said it is aware of the report and that officers receive training on the practices of fair and principled policing.
Dr. Kristee Haggins is the executive director of Safe Black Space, a nonprofit that aims to provide culturally specific strategies and resources to help facilitate Black mental health. It was created in response to increased racial tensions after the killing of Stephon Clark by Sacramento police in 2018.
“I know a common sense response is often: ‘They get trained in making sure that they treat everyone equitably,’” Haggins said. “If the data is showing that that is not the case, then [they need a] revisitation of not only the policies, but how things are being actually practiced… so that everything can shift not only at that larger systemic level, but in terms of the actual day-to-day interactions.”
Over a quarter of the stops of both Black and Latino drivers had no result whatsoever. Despite being three times more likely to be pulled over by police than white drivers, Black drivers were issued less citations after being pulled over. Black drivers had the highest rate of no-result stops, meaning no citation, warning or arrest occurring.
“The people that Sacramento police are stopping is not correlating to making our streets safer,” Victory said. “It’s not targeting people that are committing a citable offense.”
Haggins said she wasn’t surprised at the results of the report. Through her work at Safe Black Space and also as a professor for many years prior to that, she’s seen her community targeted by police in Sacramento.
“You’re stopped sometimes. Not even just for driving, or for walking, [but] for being Black,” Haggins said. “It’s disheartening to see that the experiences seem to remain the same.”
The report calls for Sacramento city officials to pass laws banning or restricting enforcement of low-level, non-safety related traffic offenses, similar to those in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“I would absolutely encourage our mayor and then our department to really look at policies that would preclude that from happening,” Haggins said. “As other larger cities or others within California … are seeing positive impacts as a result of that, that should be a clear indicator of what should be happening here locally in Sacramento.”
In an emailed statement about the report, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said, “This is an issue of concern and one in which Council has had long-standing interest. We have initiated a comprehensive City audit.“
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