In a major shift prompted by a Los Angeles Times investigation, the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite Metropolitan Division will drastically cut back on pulling over random vehicles, a cornerstone of the city’s crime-fighting strategy that has come under fire for its disproportionate impact on black and Latino drivers, the Times reports. Police Chief Michel Moore said the vehicle stops have not proved effective, netting about one arrest for every 100 cars stopped, while coming at a tremendous cost to innocent drivers who felt they were being racially profiled. Metro crime suppression officers, who number about 200, will instead track down suspects wanted for violent crime and use strategies other than vehicle stops to address crime flare-ups.
“Is the antidote or the treatment itself causing more harm to trust than whatever small or incremental reduction you may be seeing in violence?” Moore said. “And even though we’re recovering hundreds more guns, and those firearms represent real weapons and dangers to a community, what are we doing to the tens of thousands of people that live in those communities and their perception of law enforcement?” The changes, which take effect in late November, were hailed by community leaders who were critical of the stop strategies. The union that represents rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers said Moore had left the residents of South L.A. vulnerable to being preyed on by criminals. The Times investigation showed that Metro officers stopped African-American drivers at a rate more than five times their share of the city’s population. Nearly half the drivers stopped were black, in a city that is 9 percent black, the analysis found.