Sam Levin reports:
Black drivers in California’s capital are nearly five times more likely than white motorists to get pulled over by sheriffs for traffic violations, according to a new report on racial profiling across the state.
Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions.
[…]
In addition to exposing racial disparities in who gets stopped, the data, the authors say, also suggests that some departments prioritize stops that don’t support public safety.
Stops for minor violations are often used as a pretext to investigate other matters or conduct searches that can have devastating consequences, they note.
Read more at The Guardian.