In neighborhoods across San Diego County, families know the drill. A broken taillight. Tinted windows. An air freshener hanging from the mirror. Expired tags. For too many Black and Latinx residents, these everyday things aren\u2019t traffic violations \u2014 they\u2019re excuses. Excuses for a deputy to pull you over, shine a flashlight in your car and search for a reason to suspect you of something you didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
This is called a pretextual stop, and it\u2019s why so many residents do not believe the San Diego Police Department or the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s Office is on their side. Statewide data collected under California\u2019s Racial and Identity Profiling Act tells the same story: Black and Latinx drivers are far more likely than White drivers to be stopped for minor equipment or paperwork issues rather than unsafe driving.<\/p>\n
The numbers make the case better than any opinion essay can. San Diego County is 5.5% Black and 35.7% Latinx \u2014 yet Black residents make up 22% of the county jail population and Latinx residents 46%. A 2020 Campaign Zero analysis, commissioned by the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, reviewed more than 70,000 Sheriff\u2019s Office stops and 150,000 San Diego police stops from 2018 and 2019. Black people were more likely than White people to be stopped in 85% of city police beats and in every area of the Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s jurisdiction. Overall, Black people were 130% more likely<\/a> to be stopped by deputies. A 2021 Campaign Zero analysis found the disparity even higher within the city: SDPD stopped Black people at a 219% higher rate<\/a> than White people.<\/p>\n And once the lights come on, the disparity gets worse at both agencies. Once stopped, Black and Latinx people were more likely than White people to be searched, arrested and subjected to force. SDPD was 23% more likely to conduct consent searches on Black people than White people, even though Black people were less likely to be found with contraband. Campaign Zero found the Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s pattern even broader, discriminating against Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American people, as well as people with disabilities, when deciding whom to search. Let that sink in: our neighbors are searched more by both agencies<\/a> but are less likely to be found guilty of anything.<\/p>\n This is the pattern that has broken trust in both agencies. Agencies that stop and search Black and Latinx residents at these rates, year after year, without changing course, are telling those communities exactly how much their safety weighs. You cannot claim to protect a community while treating its members as suspects for driving to work. When residents can predict, based on nothing but the color of their skin, that they are more likely to be pulled over and searched \u2014 and less likely to have done anything wrong \u2014 both agencies have forfeited the presumption of good faith they ask the public to extend. That is not law enforcement. That is harassment with a badge.<\/p>\n Every one of these stops carries a cost far beyond the roadside. It shows up in a mother who dreads her teenager driving to work. In a father who has \u201cthe talk\u201d with his kids not about strangers, but about deputies. In neighbors who stop calling for help because they no longer trust who shows up. Pretextual stops don\u2019t make San Diego safer \u2014 they make entire communities feel policed rather than protected, and they teach young Black and Latinx residents that their skin color is a target long before they\u2019ve done anything wrong.<\/p>\n They also drain resources our region desperately needs elsewhere. Every minute spent fishing through a stopped car over a burned-out bulb is a minute not spent responding to an emergency or investigating a real crime. And every unnecessary arrest that begins with a pretextual stop adds another body to a county jail system already buckling under overcrowding, much of it fueled by Proposition 36 charges for low-level offenses. Ending pretextual stops isn\u2019t just about civil rights. It\u2019s about pointing limited public safety resources at what actually threatens our communities.<\/p>\n San Diego wouldn\u2019t be alone. The Los Angeles Police Department restricted pretextual stops in 2022, and San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Seattle have moved in the same direction. Studies of these shifts have found no resulting spike in crime, because pretextual stops were never an effective crime-fighting tool. They were a dragnet.<\/p>\n Real public safety isn\u2019t measured in how many people get pulled over. It\u2019s measured in whether communities can thrive \u2014 stable housing, good jobs, quality schools and youth programs that give young people somewhere to grow instead of somewhere to be watched. Every dollar and hour poured into pretextual stops is a dollar and hour not invested in what actually keeps communities safe.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t an oversight to be studied further. It\u2019s a choice the county keeps making, stop after stop, year after year. San Diego doesn\u2019t need another report to know what its own numbers already scream. If law enforcement won\u2019t rein in these practices on its own, the public must force the issue. Ban pretextual stops. Not eventually. Now.<\/p>\n