ACLU Report Finds Sacramento Police Disproportionately Stopped Black People for Traffic Violations

SACRAMENTO—Today, the ACLU of Northern California released “Driving While Black and Brown: The Case for Banning Racially Biased Traffic Stops in Sacramento,” which reveals alarming racial disparities in traffic enforcement by the Sacramento Police Department (SPD).

An analysis of 2023-2024 traffic stop data collected under California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) found that Sacramento police disproportionately stopped Black drivers. Black people made up one-third of all traffic stops but are only 12% of the city’s population. Most of these stops were for minor vehicle equipment or non-moving violations that pose little risk to traffic safety, such as a missing license plate or expired registration tags. Sacramento police also were more likely to search Black and Latino motorists, the data shows.

Police often use non-safety related traffic violations as a “pretext” to look for evidence of criminal activity when they don’t have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or probable cause for a search. Since officers have wide discretion to enforce low-level violations, racial bias can play a part in their decisions. In fact, RIPA data shows that law enforcement agencies across California consistently stop and search Black and Latino drivers at higher rates than other racial groups.

“Targeting Black and Latino drivers for minor violations like tinted windows is basically stop-and-frisk for driving,” said Carlos Montes-Ponce, senior organizer at the ACLU of Northern California. “While pretext stops have a negligible impact on public safety, they can have deadly consequences for people of color. Sacramento should follow the lead of cities like San Francisco and Berkeley that have restricted enforcement of non-moving traffic violations.”

The report’s finding that Black and Latino drivers were overrepresented in stops for “window obstruction” is in line with the Sacramento Office of Public Safety Accountability’s 2023 police audit. The office’s review of SPD misconduct complaint cases over a two-year period revealed that police only stopped Black and Latino motorists for tinted windows.

In recent years, elected officials and racial justice advocates in California have sought to reduce racial disparities in traffic enforcement by limiting pretext stops, including the Los Angeles City Council in a vote earlier this month. Those efforts have produced encouraging results. For example, in San Francisco the share of Black drivers police stopped for non-moving violations has declined by 10%.

Pretext stops are a pernicious form of racial profiling. They endanger the public and waste limited resources. The ACLU of Northern California urges Sacramento leaders to adopt a policy prohibiting police officers from stopping drivers for non-safety related violations.

Key Findings
• Black people made up 33% of all SPD traffic stops, but are only 12% of the Sacramento population;
• Black drivers were 3.1 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers;
• Of the Black drivers who were stopped, just over 70% of the stops were for vehicle equipment or non-moving violations, meaning most Black drivers were stopped for reasons that have little to do with traffic safety;
• Black and Latino drivers were, respectively, 2.1 and 1.5 times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white drivers;
• Latino drivers made up 38% of stops for window obstruction;
• Black drivers had the lowest rate of citations despite being stopped and searched more than all other racial groups. White drivers had the highest share of citations relative to their share of stops;
• In 90% of searches during traffic stops, police did not seize any items (e.g. weapons or contraband); and
• More than half of all traffic stops were for non-moving violations such as missing license plates, window obstruction, and expired registration; and 28% of stops did not result in a warning, citation, or arrest.

Read the full report.