If a driver has a broken tail light or their registration has expired, a new policy adopted by the San Francisco Police Commission now instructs officers not to pull them over.
The new policy by the Citizen's Oversight Board was adopted as part of an effort to curb racially biased traffic stops.
According to data from the California Attorney General’s Office, Black drivers are pulled over six times more often than White drivers, for things like broken or not functioning tail lights in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
To many observers and people who have been cited, those kinds of stops can seem racially biased.
"I’ve seen it, every time that the police stop somebody, it's always a Black person or a Latino person. I have never, not once, I swear have I've seen that they stop a white person,” said Mission District organizer Maria Christina Gutierrez.
According to the majority on the police commission, the newly adopted policy addresses those concerns. It instructs officers to "de-prioritize" certain traffic stops.
"So, what is the heart of what this policy does?” said San Francisco Police Commission Vice President Max Carter-Olberstone. “It identifies nine vehicle code infractions that have been proven to have no public safety benefit."
There are the nine low-priority traffic violations that the commission has directed the San Francisco Police Department to adopt as policy. They include infractions like having no registration or an expired registration tag or having decals stuck on or hanging from a window.
The San Francisco Police Department has 90 days to implement the new policy.
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But not everyone on the commission supported it, the policy was adopted on a split vote, 4 to 3. Commissioner Debra Walker is among those who were skeptical.
"What LA is doing, which is what the state has actually adopted is, when you’re pulling someone over, you have to record why you’re pulling them over on camera. So it brings a consciousness to this process, that seems to be working,” said San Francisco Police Commission member Debrah Walker. “Because their actual racial bias numbers are down."
Members of the San Francisco Police Officers Association oppose major parts of the new policy. They are considering legal action to block or delay it.
Members say some of those traffic stops lead to major arrests.
“Laws like this are changing and making it very criminal friendly to be here in San Francisco,” said Officer Kevin Worrell with the San Francisco Police Officers Association.
The split vote by the San Francisco Police Commission comes as voters are being asked to consider Proposition E, which partially deals with the powers of the police commission.
If passed, Prop E would require the police commission to seek out broader public input before making changes to police policy.
