What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Driving While Black: Tackling Racial Bias in Traffic Enforcement in Los Angeles
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In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the critical issue of racially biased traffic enforcement in Los Angeles, often referred to as "Driving While Black." Our discussion focuses on the systemic challenges faced by drivers of color, who are disproportionately targeted and affected by traffic stops in the city.
Joining us are two esteemed experts in the field: Chauncee Smith of Catalyst California, and Leslie Cooper Johnson of the Community Coalition.
Together, we explore:
- The historical context and current state of racially biased traffic enforcement in Los Angeles.
- Real-life stories and statistical data that highlight the severity of this issue.
- Innovative policy proposals and practical solutions aimed at reducing racial disparities in traffic stops.
- The role of community involvement and advocacy in driving systemic change.
Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and hear from our experts on how Los Angeles can move towards equitable and just traffic enforcement policies. Join the conversation as we seek to pave the way for progressive change in our city.
MORE INFO:
PUSH-LA: https://pushla.org/
Catalyst California: https://www.catalystcalifornia.org/
Community Coalition: https://cocosouthla.org/
Council File Index (search for file # 20-0875): https://cityclerk.lacity.org/m.clerkconnect/#/cfmsSearch
Los Angeles Times op-ed “Why traffic stops can be deadly for people of color”by Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek Epp and Kelsey Shoubt.
Washington Post ran an op-ed titled “Get police out of the business of traffic stops.” TJ Grayson and James Forman Jr.
New York Timesop-ed, “Police Officers Shouldn’t Be the Ones to Enforce Traffic Laws by Sarah Seo.,
Slate: The Myth of the Dangerous Traffic Stop Is Killing Black Men in America by Mark Josef Stern.
North Carolina Times-News: “What would happen if cops didn’t make certain traffic stops? This North Carolina city offers a case study.”
In 2019, the LA Times reported that data showed a black person in a vehicle was more than four times as likely to be searched by police as a white person, and a Latino was three times as likely. That same year, the LA Times detailed the problem of racially disparate enforcement in LAPD’s Metro unit.
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
Police stop African Americans and people of color at starkly disproportionate rates. And way too often those stops result in violence or death. Is it time to get police out of the business of conducting traffic stops altogether? That's what we discuss on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_05Conversation. Conversation that my father had with me and that his father had with him and his father had with him. Conversation is that because you are black. Or many. You don't have the ability to move freely in your community. For my grandfather, that was a gym clone. For me and my father, that is what we call a DWD. Driving on the planet or driving on the round. It is known in fact. It is called the truth. Write about it in books. You see it on TV shows. You see it dramatized in movies, but for everyday African Americans and Latinos in this country, it is our trauma. It is our reality that a police officer, one interaction with someone who's supposed to serve and protect, may turn deadly. It is our reality that having the wrong car in the wrong neighborhood could get you stopped.
SPEAKER_06Hi everybody and welcome. This is Mike Bonin. Thank you for joining me. The voice you just heard was that of Pastor Eddie Anderson. He's a prominent civil rights leader and community organizer here in Los Angeles. He was talking about racially biased traffic stops. Some people, like Pastor Eddie, understand in their bones what the subject of this episode is about. They have lived it, as have their parents and their grandparents and their great-grandparents. It is real life. But for many other people, it's an abstract concept, one that's hard to relate to. So let me talk to that group of people first. Mainly, presumably, people who look like me. People who are white, people who do not have that lived experience. Imagine, if you will, that every time you get in your car, there is a chance that you will be pulled over, detained, and frisked. Even if you did absolutely nothing wrong. Imagine that it has happened to you and to members of your family dozens of times. Now imagine that the person who pulled you over has a gun, and that person has been conditioned to see you as a threat. Imagine that your every move could alarm them, could set them off, and could result in violence or deadly force being used against you or your passengers. And now imagine if you routinely see viral videos of this kind of stuff happening to people who look like you. Imagine that there are certain parts of town where you dare not drive because the risk of being pulled over is so high. Imagine if you couldn't just hop in the car whenever you wanted without fear of being harassed. Imagine that the risks are so great that you need to have conversations with your children that other parents don't. Conversations about how to come back alive from a simple drive to the store. That is not the reality for many people, but it sure as hell is the reality for people of color. Statistics repeatedly show, nationally, locally, and other cities that black people and other people of color are far more likely to be stopped, far more likely to be frisked, far more likely to be treated aggressively than white people. It is a phenomenon known as driving while black or driving while brown. A few years ago, National Geographic did a special video on the subject. Here is an audio excerpt.
SPEAKER_09I have been stopped by the police of about four times in the last 60 days. A total of five times I've been uh bored over.
SPEAKER_00Probably more than 20 times.
SPEAKER_08It's more times than I care to remember. Uh but what you do know is how a very familiar feeling comes if someone's stopped.
SPEAKER_09When I see a police officer behind me and the flashes, this is wrapping behind me on the first.
SPEAKER_05I'm conscious of my speed limit.
SPEAKER_06It's always nerve-wracking for me.
SPEAKER_10You never know what's gonna be the outcome of traffic stuff if you're uh uh a black man. So I go through my procedures.
SPEAKER_02I try to stay as calm as possible. I turn on my light. You don't get out of the car. I make sure that my seatbelt is on right away, windows down. So he can immediately see there are no weapons. My hands need to be visible. I don't immediately reach for the glove box. 10 and 2. Did I have my hands on the steering wheel? I speak to them in a respectful manner.
SPEAKER_04Record the badge number in my head.
SPEAKER_07Have the officer feel safe?
SPEAKER_04Because they're on edge, you're on edge, and if somebody says or does the wrong thing, this could turn into something absolutely crazy in 60 seconds or less.
SPEAKER_05Get out of the car! And then you can't I will light you up. Get out! Wow! Now get out of the car for a failure to signal. You're doing all of this for there. Right, yeah. Yeah, let's take this to court.
SPEAKER_04Let's do it. Go ahead for a failure signal. Yeah, for a failure to signal.
SPEAKER_01Uh including uh the private areas, my wife ever witnessing all this.
SPEAKER_10There's an emotional psychological impact to constantly being stopped and profiled by the police department when I haven't committed any any crimes.
SPEAKER_02I respect uh police officers. I know they have a tough job. Um I have no respect for bad cops.
SPEAKER_08I'm a big supporter of the police department. But what I'm not a big fan of is those who take it in their own hands and are abusing their authority and abusing their power and claiming fear.
SPEAKER_07Police officers are human, just like any other human beings, they can make mistakes and and and have uh uh biases uh that could affect their job and their job performance.
SPEAKER_08Typically, in those encounters, they are the only one who was armed.
SPEAKER_06So, what are they afraid of police officials and policymakers know this problem, this huge injustice, this huge inequity exists, and they know that things like body worn cameras and racial bias training have had minimal, if really any effect on the problem. There's a growing number of people who feel that the smartest way to address this deadly crisis is to think about traffic safety and traffic enforcement differently. A lot of people are asking if we were going to design a system from scratch to keep our streets safe for motorists and pedestrians, for cyclists and mass transit users, what would we do? How would we design it? Would we really assign an armed officer with the authority to use deadly force to respond to a driver with a broken taillight? Since 2020, in response to a motion that I co-authored with Marquise Harris Dawson, the city of Los Angeles has been exploring how to design a better system. It has been a long, slow, tedious process with lots of bureaucratic delays, but it is picking up some steam due largely to the energy and commitment of grassroots activists who were determined to change things. Today I am really glad to welcome two of those activists to What's Next Los Angeles to discuss the problem of driving while black and to discuss the potential solutions. My guests are Chauncey Smith of Catalyst California and Leslie Cooper Johnson of Community Coalition. They represent two of the main groups participating in the Stop the Stops Coalition, which is working to end racially biased traffic stops here in Los Angeles. Uh Chauncey Smith and Leslie Cooper Johnson, thanks for joining me on What's Next Los Angeles. Thank you. Uh pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_03You're welcome. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_06Glad to have you both. This is such an important topic, and I'm glad to be able to spend some time going deep and focusing on it. Uh let's start by sort of laying some context for listeners and talking about just how big a problem racially biased policing is in traffic enforcement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it's a huge problem in the state of California and also in Los Angeles. So statewide, data from the Racial Identity Profiling Act show that black people account for approximately 5.4% of the residential population, but they are about 12.5% of all people who were stopped by law enforcement. And to put that in context, white people were very much underrepresented, accounting for 35.8 of the residential population and only 32.5% of stops. So, stated differently, stops of black people were approximately two and a half times as frequent per capita compared to stops of white people. And then when you think about the different sorts of things that happen within stops, it's also alarming in terms of racial bias. So, in terms of search rates, black people were 20.6% of all searches compared to only 12% of white people. Again, when you think about that in relationship to their proportion of the general population, those numbers are quite alarming. And even more so when you think about the outcomes of searches. So data also show that black people are less likely to be found in possession of criminal evidence than white people. When officers search black folks, only 25% of those instances result in the recovery of some form of contraband compared to 29% of white folks. And then all too often we know that from a variety of situations we've seen play out in the streets, these situations all too often uh end up in some form of a use of force being inflicted upon a person of color. So again, black people account for for about 5% of residents statewide. However, when it comes to uses of force by law enforcement, they account for 12, sorry, 18.7 percent of uses of force. And to compare, white people are very much underrepresented, 35 percent of the population and only 26 percent of uses of force by law enforcement.
SPEAKER_06Well let me just unpack that for a second, because those are some pretty big stats. The the blacks are disproportionately stopped. Blacks are disproportionately searched, and it turns out that they are less likely to have contraband than whites.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_06And when blacks are stopped, they are more likely to be searched more aggressively than whites.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_06Where you you see a uh a white person who gets stopped and they may be up uh up against the car, whereas you're gonna see somebody who's black who's gonna be down on the ground and uh just a a whole different environment and and and climate. Well, th those stats are are are pretty outrageous. Uh but I I I I want to really emphasize for people and have them understand that this isn't just about being pulled over or or or searched. As you started to sort of get to there when you talked about use of force, these stops come with a genuine threat of violence for people. So many headlines about black people killed at the hands of police or or or injured at the hands of police start with a traffic stop, right?
SPEAKER_03That's correct. Um there there's physical violence that we can talk about that's associated with with traffic stops, um, but there's also mental and psychological trauma that starts even before the actual stop. So there's really a spectrum of harm that we can talk about that happens connected to traffic stops. So the mental psychological piece starts, you know, you see the lights in your rear view. Um if you end up getting pulled over, then there's the piece around who's seeing this happening happening to me? Are my neighbors driving by? Is my kid's teacher driving by? Are they seeing, are they now viewing me as a criminal because of this happening? So all of that's happening. And then um, then there's the you know, the prospect of the physical harm. And there are so many examples of this happening that are that people can um probably recall hearing about. Um, so I can cover a few of those. Um, 2016, the case involving Philando Castile, uh, 32-year-old African-American man who was fatally shot during a traffic stop uh in Minneapolis. And this happened in front of his girlfriend and his girlfriend's four-year-old daughter who was in the car with him. So, again, talking about trauma, the people that are not necessarily like the direct victim, but people who are witnessing witnessing this, um, people's family members are impacted, right? There's just the ripples. Um, there's another case of with Dante Wright, a 20-year-old young man who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in in Brooklyn Center. Um this this incident, um, in this case, the the police officer involved said that they had intended to use their stun gun, um, their their taser gun, but accidentally drew their handgun instead and ended up killing this person. Um, in 2023, a more recent example, um, we have Tyrae Nichols, who a 29-year-old black man who was um fatally injured by police officers in Memphis and ended up dying three days later. Um, this started with a traffic stop. Uh, he ended up being pepper sprayed, tased, and beaten, and he ended up, you know, dying due to these injuries. So these are all people who were driving and pulled over, but this also happens to people who are walking, people who are riding bikes. So here in LA County, um, there was an incident with uh a young man, Dejan Kazee, who was shot and killed in in the Westmont area of the county by a sheriff's department, um, members of the Sheriff's Department who was uh deputies had tried to stop him for committing a traffic violation on his bike, and it ended up with him um being murdered. So there's uh a lot of of examples of this happening.
SPEAKER_06And the the the Philando Castile one is is such a telling example because it it it speaks in a lot of ways to the way that police are are trained in how they approach traffic stops. Uh they they are trained to see uh everyone as a deadly threat to them. Uh so in in the Flando Castile case, this was a case where I mean this officer just absolutely panicked. I mean, he had his hand on his gun to begin with, and he panicked, and as you say, he shot this guy in in front of his girlfriend and and and her young child. So many of these things are about how the the the police are are are trained and and and how they are conditioned. And and I think that there's a lot of uh people who who may be listening, white listeners who aren't familiar with the the the huge and and prevalent uh trauma of this dynamic. Um you talked about uh the the the sort of physical reaction that people have when when when they see those flashing lights. Uh you know, they're you know white white folks see flashing lights behind them. Uh it's like, ah shit, I'm gonna get a ticket, my insurance is gonna go up. Uh but it's an entirely different dynamic and it's sort of uh an existential threat. Uh so much so that you know black parents feel like they need to have you know the talk with their with their kids uh and warn them that they're gonna be perceived as a threat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um from the age of you know adolescence all the way through adulthood, I think it's common knowledge within the black community, especially that when it comes to interactions with law enforcement, you have to be extremely careful and on guard. And, you know, even myself, um from being in high school, you're you're pulled over for not doing anything wrong, doing ordinary adolescent behavior, and officers will pull you over and you'll be subject to harassment. Um and it sends this a tremendous amount of fear throughout your body because you ultimately just want to be able to make it home. You can know that you've done nothing wrong and that that still does not matter, and that should not be the situation in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_06So, how prevalent is this dynamic in the city of Los Angeles? You talked earlier about the California stats, but but what about right here where we live?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So here in Los Angeles, data show that the Los Angeles Police Department uh stops black people far more than other racial or ethnic groups. So, for example, from 2019 to 2020, black people accounted for 26.9% of stops by LAPD while making up approximately 7.8% of the city population. To compare, whites accounted for 17.4% of stops while accounting for 28.1 of this overall city population. And it's not just the disparities in themselves which are alarming, but it's also the fact that, you know, this just happens very often when people are going about their daily lives. The data show that all too often these interactions are occurring through traffic stops. So specifically, 73.5% of stops that are being conducted by LAPD are for traffic violations. And then if you dig a little bit deeper, it tells an even more telling picture of what's going on. And that's that people of color are being disproportionately stopped, not just for you know uh any traffic violation, but all too often things that are relatively low level and not an inherent um risk to traffic safety. So to be specific, the data show that 53.8% of traffic stops by LAPD during that same time period were for non-moving, i.e., administrative issues, or equipment violations. So in these two categories of stops as opposed to moving someone speeding or a DUI, right? Administrative issues and equipment violations are relatively low safety risk vehicle code violations. And what we've seen play out is that all too often these very low-level offenses being used to stop people of color are used as a basis for pretextual stops and are essentially the flip side of the same coin as racial profiling.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think that's that that's worth emphasizing because these pretextual stops, police stopping someone uh on on some minor technical issue in order to try to nail somebody for something bigger is the the police aren't shy about talking about that. I mean they will they will defend pretextual stops. They will say, this is how we keep people safe, we found these drugs, we found these weapons, uh, and and these are absolutely necessary. Uh and they never talk about the the social, the societal, the the racial harm that people suffer as a result of that.
SPEAKER_03That's right. When we look at the data, we can see that the harm that's inflicted on communities of color in particular far outweighs the benefit that that we're seeing. So additionally, like we're told that we need to have police in these positions, um, in these traffic enforcement and traffic safety positions because they're gonna keep us safe. But the data shows something to the contrary. So in fact, traffic safety outcomes have grown worse over time. In fact, in 2023, the city of Los Angeles reached a 20-year high for fatal car crashes, and more Angelinos died from car accidents that year than homicides. So 336 people died from car accidents versus 327 um via homicide. Uh also there was a report that came out in 2020 from the office of the inspector general that's associated with the Los Angeles Police Commission, um, that they found that when searches occurred, that black and Latino people were less likely to possess contraband or be cited or arrested than other racial groups. So not only are uh traffic safety outcomes getting worse, but a lot of time is being spent engaging people who the data shows are not the criminals. They're not the ones that are that are causing problems in terms of traffic safety.
SPEAKER_06And and this plays out uh in two different ways, right? There are certain neighborhoods of Los Angeles with with with a with a large black or Latino population that are really heavily policed and they do more traffic stops in those neighborhoods, just period, blanket sort of foundational. And then there's the case of if they're doing traffic enforcement in Brentwood, the person who's most likely to get stopped is the person with the darker skin. And even if they're not doing traffic enforcement in Brentwood, someone, a person of color, is more likely to get stopped in Brentwood on a pretextual stop than somebody who's white.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, that's correct. It's um across geographic locations throughout the city. Although we do know that there's a higher frequency, a higher rate of stops in areas that have higher concentrations of low-income uh people of color. But irrespect you go to the west side, um, more wealthy areas, we all know how that plays out too.
SPEAKER_06And and what sort of an impact uh does this have on money? This has got to be like a big waste of public dollars.
SPEAKER_00It's a huge waste of public dollars. So we've seen that despite these racially biased practices and ineffective uh safety outcomes, as Leslie spoke to, the LAPD's budget has grown significantly over time, increasing from approximately $1.2 billion in 2010 to over $1.8 billion in 2023. And that's just the baseline budget. But when you add in other affiliated costs with the LAPD, such as pensions, retirement, right, liability claims, human resource uh benefits, all these other things that are needed to keep uh the ship running, LAPD's total operating costs in fiscal year 2023 amounted to over $3.2 billion, right? So when you just when you think about the harm that's occurring to communities of color, and you and you put that in context with the purported goal of improving traffic safety that's not being met, and then you look at all the dollars going towards this um this overall infrastructure, it shows that we're going in the wrong direction when it comes to uh trying to improve traffic safety and trying to make sure that uh racial and ethnic groups are being treated in a way that's fair and equitable.
SPEAKER_06So we are spending a ton of money, more and more money, to not keep people safe and causing harm in a in a racially biased way to certain people in particular.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_06Those are pretty compelling stories, and they're the kind of stories that that you hear pretty much every day organizing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, these stories are are really hard to hear, and they remind me of um a time when I was a few years ago, I was pregnant with my son, and I was just driving to work and kind of just minding my own business, and all of a sudden this thought popped into my head that I that, oh gosh, I'm gonna have to have this talk with my son and explain to him at some point that although he is a loving, caring, kind human being, there are people in the world who see him as a threat. And that he, when he encounters those people, that he needs to try to act in a certain way. Even recounting that moment right now makes me feel very emotional. Um, to have to talk to a child and really put the onus on this individual to say, it's up to you to make sure that you can that you can make it home safely. Putting that kind of burden on people is just unspeakable and just really unfair to um people in communities of color that are that are impacted by this issue.
SPEAKER_06You know, a lot of people will hear these stories and you know they'll understand the injustice and they'll know the situation is wrong. And so you know their reaction may be, all right, well, we just need to train the police better to root out implicit bias. Uh why is why why is that not working? Why is that not enough?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so implicit bias training, you know, other forms of training, procedural justice, things of that nature, those things are are helpful. And they've been going on for years, right? Um for many, many years, you know, situation happens and then there's immediate response. We need to have more training and uh cultural sensitivity and things like that. While it's helpful in helping to, you know, maybe address the immediate concerns about how officers are acting, it's extremely insufficient when you look at outcomes over time, right? So despite repeated efforts to train at the imposed by the state or localities, we continue to see that black people and Latinx people are disproportionately being stopped by officers. And it's not just the stops themselves, it's the things that happen during the stops. Uses of force, um searches, harassment, dehumanization, traumatization, um, a whole host of very negative, harmful consequences, right? And then we also know if we look at comparables, right? When a white person is stopped or um interacting with law enforcement, we the officers know how to treat them appropriately, right? So we don't necessarily think that we can train our way to uh you know a better approach to law enforcement. It has to be something much more comprehensive, right? It's not one individual officer, it's not an individual bad apple, it's not a few subsets of officers. It's something that's much bigger in terms of scope and much deeper in terms of depth, right? So from push a lay's perspective, the city's overall approach to traffic safety is completely misplaced, right? If you think about the nature of how we go about it, it's inherently reactive. So an officer has to identify someone allegedly engaging in some form of a traffic violation. So that wrong has already occurred. And then the officer stops the person and uses punishment in the form of a ticket as the proposed deterrent, right? But research shows that it's that's not actually improving traffic safety over the course of time because we've been giving out tickets or the LAPD's been giving out tickets for generations, right? The tickets ain't aren't going away, right? And we see traffic safety outcomes are getting worse. So you just put those two things together and it shows you that we have to rethink what we're doing, right? We have to really get to the heart of the problem, the solution-oriented approaches, and then we have to root those solutions in uh care and equity to make sure that people are being treated in a way that's fair.
SPEAKER_06And and this is the challenging part because you know, for four years now, we've we've been at least theoretically more open to discussions about reimagining public safety. There have been various proposals put forward. And one of the biggest challenges I've found, uh, particularly when I was in office, is getting people to be able to imagine an alternative, right? We are so conditioned that police respond to everything. We're so conditioned that police are the response to traffic stuff that it's really hard for people to sort of imagine what those alternatives are. So let's talk a little bit about what some of the specific alternatives are that you and the Push LA coalition are proposing.
SPEAKER_03Um the the first thing that we're calling for is an end to pretextual stops. Um the LAPD did uh in 2022 um change their policy and uh stops, pretextual stops have been reduced dramatically. We want to continue in that same direction and we're calling for an end to pretextual stops. Um specifically, we are calling for non-enforcement of equipment violations. So this is something like if you have a broken tail light, um, we understand that that broken tail light can actually impact safety. Uh, and so we are calling for non-enforcement of that violation. Um, but we have the technology in place where we can um be able to send someone a voucher um to actually get that thing fixed uh instead of giving them a ticket, which actually doesn't solve the problem. So we're calling for non-enforcement of equipment violations, also of non-moving violations. So these are like administrative issues, paperwork, fees, things like that. Um, we like to see non-enforcement of those things as well. Again, these things can be handled in another way. We're not saying that they're not problems, but the the current solution to solving these problems is not working. Um, also, the the city council called for a feasibility study. And right now, city departments are looking into um moving violations to see if there are also any moving violations that are that are could be considered to be non-safety related that could also maybe qualify for non-enforcement, something like failure to put on your turn signal. Um, so yes, that's that's the the proposed solution that we're calling for. And the the limitation of pretextual pretextual stops, this is something that's it's trending across the nation. So this is something that Los Angeles would be in good company um if they were to do this. Um so we're seeing efforts like this in Nashville, in Oakland, Portland, Pittsburgh, the whole state of Vermont. Um so this is not something that we have to kind of feel you know worried about taking a risk. There are our um other jurisdictions are doing this and having positive outcomes.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's uh it's amazing. Of all the different stuff that that I that I talked about as an elected official that the the police reacted poorly to, the idea of getting them out of pretextual traffic stops was like the biggest flashpoint. The only thing that came close to that in terms of like the police union's objections was uh uh uh not not giving them all the raises they wanted. Right? It was they they they're very deeply wedded to the pretextual traffic stops. But as you say, lots of other cities uh doing doing a lot of big reforms. Uh what are also some of the alternatives?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Push LA also wants to limit traffic ticket fees and fines for low-income people, right? So say what someone is is driving, trying to get to work, and this person's low income, struggling to make ends meet, and they're going to be late for work. And because of that, they may have um engaged in some form of a minor traffic violation. We think that the city of Los Angeles should take an equity-centered lens at these sorts of interactions to determine whether that person should be subjected to fees and fines. Because for a person that's struggling to pay for food, um uh afford bills, um, health care, take care of their loved ones, uh, a ticket may seem like not so much on its face, but it could amount to very, very tremendous barriers for someone that's barely making ends meet. And so at the core of this recommendation, Push LA is really trying to limit traffic ticket fees and fines for people who are who are low income in Los Angeles. And um, in addition to that, you know, this is really important for communities in Los Angeles at the south such as South LA that have higher concentrations of low-income people. Because when you think about it in aggregate, it's not just one individual person, but it's extracting economic resources from an entire community when you think about the fact that these stops are disproportionately occurring in areas that have higher concentrations of people who are both low income and of color. So if you want to see the economic vitality of you know parts of LA continue to improve, uh this is also a very solution-oriented approach to that, in addition to preventing the harms from occurring to the individual people who are involved in those interactions.
SPEAKER_06And it's important to note how hefty these fines are. Like even if the city gives a $100 ticket, by the time the person has an opportunity to pay that, county and state fees and court costs have been assessed on top of it. And you're talking $350, $400, right? I mean, and for somebody who's making minimum wage in Los Angeles, that's like almost a week's pay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Uh that's that's backbreaking. So the idea of uh helping someone solve the problem instead of punishing them and and and putting them into a deeper hole of poverty and despair is uh a pretty reasonable one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And you know, the direction that we're we're moving towards is hey, we shouldn't just um ignore traffic safety risks, but we should really try to address the root cause of the problem, right? So instead of punishment, right, tickets, which history has shown is an ineffective deterrent to improving the individual behavior, what we need to do is change the conditions, the circumstances in which people operate to prevent the traffic safety risk altogether, right? So, for example, say an office, say um a person's driving down the street, same example as for before, maybe they went two, three miles, five miles per hour over the speed limit and they got a ticket, and then it causes a ripple effect in the rest of their life. And maybe they can't even pay for the ticket and then it's a whole nother monster. But what if instead of paying a ton of money to have officers give out those tickets and lead towards um uh ineffective outcomes, instead we prevented people from speeding altogether. So we could invest in urban infrastructure to make it safer, have more speed bumps to prevent a person from exceeding the speed limit, add more stop signs, roundabouts, different forms of infrastructure upgrades, which research shows is a more effective approach to um lead to create better traffic safety outcomes over the course of time. Um, and research also shows that continuing to focus on the individuals, the people, and try to um like force them into changing their behavior through punishment is not working.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, we actually have a city that in many ways is designed to encourage people to speed. Psychologically, anybody on a wide road goes faster than on a narrower road. And there are so many streets in in Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, uh in South Los Angeles that are really wide with really wide intersections. It leads people to speed. If you engineer a street to have narrower intersections where people need to slow down, or if you've got um uh you know a bike or a bus-only lane that sort of pinches traffic a little bit, people are are forced to slow. And the other thing that's important is you you mentioned um in sort of the the aggregate of the the ticketing. There's there's an aggregate impact on on the infrastructure as well. If if you look at the most dangerous intersections or street segments in Los Angeles, they are in South Los Angeles and they're in parts of the San Fernando Valley. They tend to be in lower income communities, communities of color, and the people who are most likely to get killed or seriously injured in an accident are are pedestrians and seniors. Uh it's the leading cause of death of of children in LA County is traffic violence. And um the the other people most likely to get get impacted are are people of color, immigrants, people who are low income. So I I think you're spot on when you're talking about some of the engineering solutions that prevent the speeding of the traffic violence to begin with. Um you're also talking about uh non uh or or no surveillance technol technologies. What is that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so a common response to um policy arguments about ending pretextual stops are often rooted in the same um reactive punishment-centered paradigm. Right? And we're really trying to do a step away from that. So I'll be specific. So um there's examples out there of situations where instead of having a police officer stop a person and give them a ticket, um some jurisdictions might propose to um add red light cameras or other forms of automated traffic enforcement in order to replace the human being officer and um still punish the person to prevent allegedly prevent the um the unwanted behavior. However, push LA opposes the use of surveillance technologies for a few important reasons. One speaks to something that you mentioned earlier. All right, so if you look at traffic safety outcomes, it shows that they are worse in um particular parts of LA. So there's more accidents in um areas that have higher concentrations of low-income communities of color. And these are these areas are called um in, you know, um another phrase for these areas is high injury network corridors, right? So um what tends to happen is that when surveillance technologies are introduced, they're placed in the areas, the parts of um a particular city that have the highest amount of accidents or uh fatal car crashes. So if those areas end up overlapping with the areas that have higher concentrations of people who are of color or low income, it's going to lead towards uh a racial disparity on who is being subjected to tickets that are issued pursuant to these surveillance technologies. So, one major issue with them is that um, although the the human interaction between law enforcement and a community member um won't be occurring, it'll still it'll still lead towards the racially inequitable economic outcomes in the form of tickets being disproportionately issued to people of color and people who are low income that can't afford to pay the tickets anyway. And then in addition to that, communities of color have long been subjected to routine surveillance by law enforcement, whether it's actually by officers themselves or other forms of surveillance. And there's a significant concern and I think legitimate fear when it comes to communities of color that anytime you add cameras or other forms of technology to the communities, um, it could uh be a form of invading their privacy and create a sense of like um ever-expanding police state. And it sends the wrong message to a lot of people, and a lot of folks um have concerns about that. And then I'll say third, there's also significant concerns about the reliability of those surveillance technologies. So um there were there was uh the use of uh speed cameras in California a few years back, but after um challenging some local court cases throughout the state, they actually got banned. And speed cameras are are no longer used in many jurisdictions throughout the state. And the reason was because uh the courts in California found that there was flaws in the technology between the amount of time that um occurred between a yellow light and then when the camera would take a picture with the red light. Right. So um, although like on its face, the the the uh the use of surveillance technologies can seem fairly innocuous, there's uh numerous problems, racial bias, potential inaccuracy, and then concerns about privacy and um invading the overall well-being of communities of color that lead, at least the push LA coalition, to not want these to be a key part of the solution, and instead really get to the equity and um more care-centered approaches like the infrastructure, the engineering, and the urban design upgrades as the key pathway to improving traffic safety in the city of Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_06And and Leslie, one of the other things the coalition has been pushing have been unarmed care-centered responses. What is what is that?
SPEAKER_03So the the the recommendation around unarmed and care-centered response is rooted in um the need for us to kind of interrogate the our society's over-reliance on police in a lot of different spaces. Um, I think connected to the the piece around enhancing street infrastructure, um, when we enhance street infrastructure, there's a one-time expenditure for that improvement versus paying for uh a motorcycle cop to be posted on a street into perpetuity, right? Uh and so, you know, we heard in um in years past this call for defunding the police. And I believe, you know, it was a soundbite. And I believe that that soundbite did cause a lot of people to have fear and anxiety around what that meant. Um, that, you know, police budget would go to zero overnight and anarchy and the purge would ensue, right? Um, but I think in practice, it's really about interrogating our over-reliance on policing and saying there are spaces where police are not the best option. Are there other spaces where they may be? Perhaps. But traffic is one of them, right? So we're interrogating and saying based on the outcomes, based on what our um our desire is to improve safety in our community, it's not working. And so we need to do something else. And so The unarmed care-centered response is part of that. Um, we're looking, we're proposing that there be teams of highly trained individuals who can respond to various crises that are traffic related or otherwise without weapons and without law enforcement presence. Um, folks might remember the case involving Keenan Anderson in early last year. Um, this young man was involved in a traffic collision and um apparently was undergoing some mental health challenges, some substance challenges, um, but needed assistance. And police were you know deployed to the scene, and Keenan Anderson ended up being tased six times by a member of the LAPD and uh and died later on that day. Um, so this is an another space where um people have got into a traffic accident. This has happened in this happened in Venice, um, and folks are um you know have just had something traumatic happen to them. They need support, they need uh intervention. Uh, and when people see police, there's um, like we talked about with the trauma when you're getting pulled over, you see the lights, there is a response that's triggered um in a lot of people that is um that is defensive, that is, okay, I'm I'm in fear now because these people are here. And so we really believe that the un the unarmed care response teams can can help with that, can help with people who are who who need some kind of assistance, but maybe could benefit from other trained professionals outside of law enforcement. And the city of LA really has a track record around doing things like this. There's the gang reduction and youth development program where um gang interventionists are engaged in helping you know create uh keep peace and create public safety in communities. So there are examples that we can build upon to do this.
SPEAKER_06I'm curious, you've been involved, both of you, as part of the coalition, in in a push for reform in in Los Angeles. And you know, we're recording this in September of 2004. It's been over four years uh since uh Marquise and I, when I was on the council, proposed replacing armed traffic enforcement with alternatives. Uh four years later, what has changed?
SPEAKER_00Uh in short, not much. But um, you know, there's been a lot of work done by the Push LA coalition to see some change occur. All right, so the coalition has has been working to advance non-law enforcement alternatives to traffic safety at for, as you mentioned, um, four almost five years now, as we go into 2025. It's been a tremendous uh uphill battle for us and a very long process and uh extremely difficult. And as a result of so much time passing, you know, it's really led to a shift in terms of how everyday people see things. The political window and the political climate is not in the same place as it was in 2020. In 2020, as you as you know, we really had the wind at our backs because it was in the center of a landmark, unprecedented movement for black lives, right? And then in addition to that, there were there were tremendous calls and public support for no longer over-relying on the criminal legal system to uh address a wide variety of social issues that it was not designed to address, and to move towards equity and more care-centered approaches to community safety. Now, while we still have support and power and push a lay coalition, you know, public opinion has evolved and we we have to address a different political climate, and things are have been extremely difficult over the course of the past few years. And at the same time, you know, we're doing our best to really educate community members so that they understand what is sound public policy, right? So it's not just a racial justice issue, it's also, you know, what makes the most sense for the city of Los Angeles. Leslie and I unpacked the solutions that we're trying to offer up in collaboration with other core partners in the Push LA coalition. And if we want to move the needle when it comes to community safety, traffic safety really goes to the heart of it.
SPEAKER_06How surprised or frustrated are you that that we still haven't made any progress?
SPEAKER_00Surprised? Um I'm not surprised. Um being in this work for years, you you you come to learn. I think there's a phrase that many of us know it's a marathon, not a sprint. Right? So um, you know, even the civil rights movement, right? And uh Martin Luther King back in the day, and all those different things serve as precursors, precedent for things to happen at some point in the future. And being dedicated to this work, uh, I'm not surprised at all. Um, but it is frustrating, especially when you consider where the city, the state, and the nation was a few years ago. We we were like, okay, everyone seems to understand. Um, but you know, and and the it's it's completely flipped um within a matter of a few years. I think there's still valid concerns about the underlying issues. And like I think most people understand that racial profiling is a problem, right? Most people will acknowledge that and will say that we need to, yeah, we don't want racial profiling to occur. But you know, as you mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of folks may not be as close to understanding what things could look like if we really made a significant commitment to living into our values of equity and care and really jettisoned out like outdated approaches that just don't make sense. And it's hard for folks to you know really understand that. And what we're really trying to do is, you know, talk to you and other folks in the general public to like educate them so that they have a better grasp of what the city of Los Angeles could really do if um we you know choose to choose to move the needle to move forward.
SPEAKER_06So Leslie, in your view, you know, what what what is holding things up? Is it outright organized opposition? Is it sort of bureaucratic inertia, or is it an inability for people to imagine something different?
SPEAKER_03I think a lot of the holdup has to do with bureaucratic delays, uh, to be honest. Um, you know, the motion that you and your colleagues introduced, um, that was in June of 2020. Um the motion didn't even get voted on until February of 2021, eight months later.
SPEAKER_06That had something to do with the council president at the time. Absolutely. Nurry Martinez.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Um yeah, the council president holds a lot of power in terms of setting the agendas for the meetings, and so we didn't even get a vote on the motion until eight months later. Um, then the the Department of Transportation was charged with um undergoing a task force process, and that was a multi-year process. Um both Chauncey and I participated on the task force along with other um uh you know citizens of Los Angeles. Um and so that involved a study, um, engaging consultants, reports, recommendations. So that was a two-year process, and the final report wasn't presented to the council until um at the end of 2023. Uh and so now there are another feasibility study is taking place. And, you know, this process has taken, you know, four or five years. And I it's hard for me to imagine how long it could have taken without our advocacy on the outside. Um, because we have been meeting with departments, um, engaging elected officials, um, engaging media to keep this issue in the in the public um discourse. Uh and so I can I I it's it's hard to think where this issue might be without um the advocacy efforts.
SPEAKER_06Oh, without your advocacy efforts, it it'd be completely dead. It just would it would have died uh a very quiet death. So I mean, what do you think the the the next steps are? I mean, what is needed now to get this done?
SPEAKER_03Well, right now the city's engaged in a 90-day feasibility study, so that should be completed soon. The the process began in June. So again, we are um there's a a um a laundry list of departments that are engaged with um studying different aspects. And so we've been, you know, meeting with them, encouraging them to stick to this timeline. Because what we also learned is that sometimes these timelines are more suggestions. And so um we're trying to hold people to these timelines. Um the next step would be for the city council to then take action by passing a motion that would bring an end to racially biased pretextual stops, limit traffic ticket fees and fines, and and make the investments in street infrastructure to improve traffic safety. Um and but we need, you know, we need Angelinos to join in these advocacy efforts to make sure that these things happen.
SPEAKER_06What's your level of confidence?
SPEAKER_03Level of confidence is high because we're really motivated and we know that um um that residents of South Los Angeles and other parts of of the city have been calling for this and and really need this. So we're determined and we're not gonna stop until we get what we what we deserve.
SPEAKER_06So, how do people get plugged in? How do they join the effort to make this happen in Los Angeles?
SPEAKER_00So they can start by just tracking what's going on within this within the city council. So if you're particularly interested in being more closely connected to the work, you can go to the LA City website and this work is flowing through what's called a council file. And the council file number is 20-0875. And if you go there on the LA City website, you can see all the different things that have been happening since uh 2020 and then the things that will be happening um in the future when it comes to these particular issues that we've been talking about today.
SPEAKER_06And I'll I'll put a direct link to that in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00That would be great. Um, and then in addition to that, if you want to become more actively involved in the process, I would encourage all of your listeners to contact their uh respective council members uh and the mayor to let them know that LA needs to put an end to the use of racially biased pretextual stops, limit traffic ticket fees and fines, especially for low-income people, and improve traffic safety by investing in better infrastructure, particularly in low-income communities of color. And then, as we mentioned, uh Leslie and I are part of a broader coalition of organizations called Push LA that's been working tirelessly on the on these matters up until now. And then also we work for our respective individual organizations. Uh, mine is called Catalyst California, and you can follow Catalyst California at uh catalystcali, uh ending with the I on Twitter, and then on Facebook or Instagram, it's catalyst California as a whole. And then Push LA as a coalition has a website, it's uh pushla.org. And uh Leslie.
SPEAKER_03Uh sure. Um so I'm with Community Coalition, which is a partner organization of Push LA, and folks can follow us on social media on Facebook and Instagram at at Coco South L A. Oh, C-O-C-O-S-O-U-T-H L A. And you can see updates about this work and and join in advocacy efforts.
SPEAKER_06Any final thoughts either one of you want to share? Closing thoughts?
SPEAKER_00Uh just thank you, Mike. Appreciate the opportunity to speak to you, um, to communicate to your listeners. Hopefully, you know, folks are encouraged or excited by by the work that they hear going on within the context of Push LA and can be supportive of our overall effort to try to end racially biased pretextual stops in the city of Los Angeles. You know, it's been four years, and it's time for us to um, you know, make some significant changes in the city of LA.
SPEAKER_06We gotta get it done. It's a matter of life or death. Uh Chauncey, Leslie, thank you both uh for joining me on what's next, Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_06If you want to explore this issue further, I have a long list of articles and resources in the show notes, including links to relevant data and to case studies of cities which have begun to take a different approach to traffic enforcement. I should note before we go that one of the biggest and most forceful opponents of changing the current racially biased and deadly system are police associations. For instance, the Los Angeles Police Protective League is vehemently opposed to changes that would take police officers out of traffic stops. It's worth noting that LAPD officers spend exponentially more time, exponentially more time, stopping drivers and pedestrians for perceived violations than they do responding to or investigating violent crime. More time on traffic stops than on investigating or responding to violent crime. That is an issue that really needs to be discussed a lot more as the city considers these reforms. And that does it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. My thank you to Chauncey and to Leslie for joining me. My thanks to my friend Marta Avery for editing, and my thanks to you for listening. Please subscribe, follow, spread the word, leave a positive review. And of course, thanks to my partners at LA Forward for sponsoring this podcast and our sister podcast named LA Podcast. Make sure to check that out too. You will find that wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, thank you. Take good care and peace.