We know that when police officers have more discretion to stop and search someone, significant racial and identity disparities are prevalent. San Diego needs to protect Black, Asian Pacific Islander and Latino people, the LGBT community and the disabled community from biased policing.

A number of reports and analyses released in recent years reinforce stories from the community that there are racial and identity disparities in the San Diego Police Department’s (SDPD) police practices. This is not a problem SDPD can train its way out of. Practices must change. We need our elected leaders to take action.

Key data points:

SDSU TRAFFIC STUDY (2016):
“Citywide and across 2014 and 2015, Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely than White drivers to be searched following a traffic stop, and despite facing higher search rates, were less likely to be found with contraband.”

CAMPAIGN ZERO REPORT (2019):
“Black people were 23% more likely and Latinx people were 60% more likely to have San Diego police conduct a consent search...and were less likely than white people to be found with contraband during these searches.”

In 2018-2019, Pacific Islanders were stopped by San Diego police at 126% higher rate per population than white people.

SDPD was 81% more likely to search people perceived to have mental disabilities during a stop and more than two times as likely to use force against them as compared to people with no perceived disability.

SDPD was 22% more likely to search and 54% more like to arrest people without a warrant who were perceived as LGBTQ compared to people who were perceived non-LGBTQ.

VOICE OF SAN DIEGO REPORTING (2019):
“Black people stopped by law enforcement were searched at higher rates than any other race: 22 percent by Sheriff’s deputies and 24 percent by San Diego police. But at the same time, searches of black people resulted in lower or roughly the same rate of property seizures compared with other races, at 14 percent and 10 percent of the time, respectively.”

CENTER ON POLICING EQUITY REPORT (2021):
During a traffic stop, Black people were 2.5 times more likely to be searched by SDPD than white people were. Latino people were 2.2 times more likely to be searched than white people were.

37.2% of all traffic stops of Black people were for equipment violations alone. For traffic stops of Latino people, 31.8% of stops were solely for equipment violation. For traffic stops of white people, only 20% were for equipment violations.

PrOTECT will help by:

• Require officers to have probable cause to stop, detain or search a person (this includes “Fourth Waivers” - people on probation or parole who have waived some of their Fourth Amendment rights);

• Eliminate stops for certain equipment violations (i.e. expired registration, broken turn signal, etc.);

• Prohibit officers from questioning people about any offense beyond the offense for which they were stopped unless the officers have probable cause; and

• Hold officers accountable if they violate the PrOTECT ordinance.

We urge you to support the PrOTECT ordinance.