(FOX40.COM) — A new ACLU report alleges Sacramento police disproportionately target Black and Latino drivers in traffic stops.

The report found that one-third of traffic stops conducted by the Sacramento Police Department were of Black drivers — more than three times the rate of white drivers — even though only 12% of the city’s residents are Black. It used data from 2023-2024 collected through the Racial and Identity Profiling Act.

Many of those stops were for minor violations such as missing license plates or expired registration tags, a tactic the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California said police often use as a “pretext” to pull someone over without reasonable suspicion of a crime.

Additionally, both Black and Latino drivers were searched by Sacramento police at higher rates — 2.1 times and 1.5 times, respectively — the report found.

“Targeting Black and Latino drivers for minor violations like tinted windows is basically stop-and-frisk for driving,” Carlos Montes-Ponce, a senior organizer at the ACLU of Northern California, said in a news release. “While pretext stops have a negligible impact on public safety, they can have deadly consequences for people of color.”

The ACLU also cited a 2023 audit by the Sacramento Office of Public Safety Accountability, which showed that, over two years, police “only stopped Black and Latino motorists for tinted windows.”

White drivers received the highest share of citations relative to the number of traffic stops, the report found, while Black drivers were cited at the lowest rate. And in 90% of searches, police did not seize any items, the ACLU said.

Sacramento police spokesperson Allison Smith told FOX40 the department is aware of the ACLU report.

“From academy onward, our officers receive training on the practices of fair and principled policing,” she said in a statement. “The department remains committed to providing high-quality police services while constantly reviewing policies and practices to support effective policing and maintaining public trust.”

The ACLU suggested Sacramento follow in the footsteps of other Northern California cities and adopt a policy that would prohibit officers from stopping drivers for non-safety-related violations.

“Sacramento should follow the lead of cities like San Francisco and Berkeley that have restricted enforcement of non-moving traffic violations,” Montes-Ponce said.

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