The picture is just a reminder to the Los Angeles Police Chief. It is apparent he has not seen a pair of balls in recent memory. Here is what brass balls look like. Liars figure and figures lie. Ball-less police Chiefs allow these games to continue.
Two journalist whores for the LA Times have concluded that the Metro Division is targeting minorities based on a comparison of percentages of those stopped compared to percentage of population. The LA Police Chief led their faulty analysis slide and announced a change in policy.
Jack Dunphy a recently retired LAPD Sergeant holler bullshit in the PJ media article. https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lapd-chief-buckles-to-l-a-times-curtails-stops-for-improved-perception/
I concur. Up until 1996 and Whren v. U.S. [517 U.S. 806 (1996)] nobody ever claimed racial profiling or trotted out statistics surrounding police activity. That is because police were banned from making “pretext stops.”
Prior to 1996 a pretext stop would fall into the following scenario. Narcs receive word from a “credible and reliable person” that a suspect parks outside a school at closing time and deals drugs to students. They are provided with a description of the car, suspect, name and location. They determine that the suspect has a history of drug convictions.
The detectives go to the school. They establish surveillance on the suspect and in the process confirm all the details that their informant provided. They observe the suspect interact with several students in what may be transactions. But they can’t say for certain that an exchange has been made. The suspect concludes his business and drives off. As he does so, the suspect fails to signal a left turn. The Narcs institute a traffic stop.
During the stop they observe drugs in “plain view.”
Let’s change things up, just a tad. The stupidest patrol officer, at the same police department, is driving down the street. He observes the same suspect fail to signal the left turn. He initiates a traffic stop. He needs the ticket to keep his sergeant off his ass.
The patrol officer sees the drugs and makes the arrest.
The question becomes pre-Whren, who done good? Not the narcs, if they are basing their stop of the suspect based on the observed traffic violation. They are narcs, not traffic cops. The narcs were just looking for an excuse to stop him and that’s unfair.
Nope, the stupid cop wins the day. His job is to make traffic stops. Finding the dope was a by-product. Good search, good arrest.
That all changed in 1996 with the Whren v US decision. Basically the Supreme Court said, don’t want to go to jail while committing a felony on the road? Follow the traffic law.
If you get right down to it all of the statistics and claims of racial profiling are just an end run to reestablish the rule against pretext stops.
Just as they manipulate statistics to perpetuate a lie, these intrepid journalists continue the lie with language. They characterize the traffic stops as “random.” I would take random to mean without reason or cause. This is untrue.
In order to make a traffic stop, a police officer needs probable cause to believe a violation has occurred. Keep in mind that if the California traffic code is anything like Texas’ then it is hundreds of pages long with a dozen violations per page. Most drivers can’t move a block without committing a violation. It doesn’t matter that the driver didn’t intend or even know the violation existed. In this case it’s the deed and not the thought.
A truly random stop does the police no good. If probable cause to stop doesn’t exist then anything found, from the point forward is inadmissible as evidence.
The other thing to consider is that probable cause to stop is not beyond a reasonable doubt to convict. State’s attorneys, and traffic court judges may find reason not to pursue charges or convict, but that is a separate issue. I didn’t issue citations, if I later arrested the driver. I felt it would only detract from the felony case. Why have a different prosecutor and court mess with a minor violation at the expense of the felony? In Texas, the District Court (felony) had original jurisdiction over traffic offenses.
This meant that the District Court was a proper, if not unusual venue, to take evidence on a traffic violation and make a ruling. As a general rule if the issue came up, the controversy was regarding the traffic violation as probable cause to stop. This was typically held during a motion to suppress the evidence found as a result of the stop.
Let’s turn the statistic game around. How many elderly Jewish folks did Metro stop? How about old Asians? Let’s focus on age. How many people were over the age of eighty? I’d be willing to guess zero. What percentage of the population is represented by those groups? Why are they under represented?
Playing statistical games is a suckers bet. The last time I assigned to Patrol it was in a bedroom community surrounded by San Antonio. The median income in this berg was probably two to three times the median income of San Antonio. A “tear down home” typically sold for $200 K. It was entirely possible to wave a million dollars at a home purchase and not expect any change. The cops didn’t have a whole lot to do. So they did what bored cops everywhere do, they resorted to traffic enforcement.
There were two major roads the traversed the community and were used by the denizens of San Antonio to go from the south side to the north side. It shouldn’t surprise the reader that people who can afford to live in this community drive late model, high end cars. People who pass through this paradise drive what ever will roll.
Care to guess how many registration, expired inspection, no insurance, and equipment violation tickets were issued to residents? Yup, next to none. The recipients of those citations drove old cars and lived paycheck to paycheck. Let’s see, feed the kids or pay for the repairs so the car will pass inspection.
A statistical case, using non-moving violations as a hallmark, could be made that these hard charging patrol officers were targeting non-residents and a high percentage of minorities.
The reality is that brand new cars operated by affluent people do not have equipment violations.
Metro Division functions as trouble shooters, They target gangs, felons and serious crimes. Jewish grandmothers, old Asians and geriatrics are not on their radar. Here is a thought. Take the reporters targeted group and dig a little deeper. What is the average number of prior arrests attributed to these unfortunates. How about how many claim gang membership? How many were arrested?
If these were truly random stops then it stands to reason that a certain percentage will have had no prior dealing with law enforcement. What is that percentage? Were some of these miscreants stopped without sufficient probable cause, probably. Let them make their case in court. If their gripe is legitimate they will prevail.
My parents did a lot of traveling while in their late sixties into their late seventies. This necessitated airline travel. The father would breeze through security without a problem. Two out of three times my mother would be passed on for a secondary search. Just the luck of the numbers, TSA doesn’t profile. Now that’s random, no rhyme or reason.
