Back in June, 2020, California Highway Patrol officers cruising in Oakland spotted a suspicious Dodge Challenger Hellcat that was later determined to have been stolen from a San Leandro Dodge dealership. The vehicle also sported a stolen license plate. CHP pursued the car, which tried to get away. Eventually, they boxed it in with their own cars. Then, according to media reports, the driver, Eric Salgado, “revved the engine and began spinning the tires, burning rubber [and] rammed into several CHP cars.” At that point, the cops, fearing for their own safety and that of their follow officers, fired their weapons. Salgado was killed.
When CHP stopped the car, they were engaging in a “discretionary traffic stop” more often referred to in the media a “pretext stop.” This is when the cops see a car that is suspicious for a variety of reasons: it might have blacked-out windows or lack a license plate. It might be speeding excessively or driving on a sidewalk. It might have been reported stolen, as in Salgado’s case. Under such circumstances, cops have historically been permitted to stop the vehicle based on these facts alone.
One result of traffic stops is that people of color are stopped more frequently than Whites. A Stanford University study “found significant racial differences in Oakland, California, police conduct toward African Americans in traffic and pedestrian stops,” with “African American men…four times more likely to be searched than whites during a traffic stop.” Because of this disparity, civil rights groups for years have demanded an end to such stops, on the claim that they’re racially biased. The ACLU, for instance, has pointed out that in Oakland, “[W]hites comprise 31.3 percent of Oakland’s population, yet they account for only 16 percent of vehicle stops, and 6.7 percent of motorists searched. African Americans, by contrast, make up 35.7 percent of Oakland’s population, yet account for 48 percent of vehicle stops, and 65.8 percent of motorists searched.” The Director of the ACLU of Northern California’s Racial Justice Project called this “simply unacceptable,” and joined a growing chorus of liberal organizations calling for pretext stops to end.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, former DA Chesa Boudin, who was fired by voters from his job, similarly complained about traffic stops. Almost as soon as he took office, Boudin instructed his staff to stop them; he called such stops “DWB” (Driving While Black) and accused cops of having “conscious or unconscious bias…they can profile individuals based on perceived race, ethnicity or other social categories.” Oakland’s own cop hater, Cat Brooks, also criticized pretext stops. On her blog, she falsely claimed Salgado had been “profiled, targeted and assaulted by a law enforcement agency that had no business cruising Oakland’s streets.” (What? Cops aren’t supposed to patrol??) Traffic enforcement laws, Brooks alleged, are “racist and violent…a gross waste of resources with little beneficial returns.” On her Anti Police-Terror Project page, Brooks resorted to more incendiary rhetoric. “Between the FBI, ATF and now CHP, Black Oaklanders should consider themselves good and hunted.”
Some activists agree with the ACLU, Brooks and Boudin. One person on Facebook wrote,“Who said [Salgado] stole the car ?? Who said that a car was worth his life ? Who said he ran ? Who said he even had a gun on him? , it's alot of white people acting like they know the answer…”.
Two years after Salgado’s fatal shooting, in April, 2022, then-Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley refused to bring criminal charges against the CHP officers, declaring that they were justified in using deadly force to stop him. A year later, in June, 2023, after Pamela Price became District Attorney, Salgado’s family demanded Price reopen the case. A leftwing supporter of the family told the media, “We have a new D.A. who ran on the campaign commitment of filing charges against killer cops. We are demanding that D.A. Pamela Price reopen the case closed by her predecessor, Nancy O'Malley. Charge the officer involved for the murder of Erik [sic] Salgado.” Brooks renewed her efforts to ban pretext stops. “She is working with lawmakers and organizations across California to propose a bill that would ban police from making traffic stops,” NBC Bay Area reported.
The anti-stops movement so far has not been able to garner enough support in the California Legislature to entirely ban the practice. But the Democratic majority in the Legislature did manage to pass a compromise bill (signed by Gov. Newson) that curtails the practice. Assembly Bill 2773 “would, beginning on January 1, 2024 [i.e. today], require each state and local agency to include in its annual report the reason given to the person stopped at the time of the stop.” Up until now, cops did not have to tell a driver why they stopped him. Now, “a peace officer making a traffic or pedestrian stop, before engaging in questioning related to a criminal investigation or traffic violation, [will have] to state the reason for the stop, unless the officer reasonably believes that withholding the reason for the stop is necessary to protect life or property from imminent threat.”
This clearly won’t satisfy the anti-police types, but it is a slippery slope toward their eventual goal: stopping traffic stops entirely. It’s obvious that traffic stops based on suspicious behavior are an integral tool in fighting crime. We ought not to be distracted by so-called “racial discrepencies” in police stops. Since people of color commit more crimes, relative to their percent of the population, that’s the main reason why they get stopped more frequently. We know, also, that the effort by the Left to hobble police will never stop, until the anti-police Left is stripped of all power. Your Coalition is proud of the fact that, for more than three years now, we’ve led the pro-cop movement in Oakland. We’ll continue to do so in 2024, for however long it takes.
Please take a moment to remember Officer Tuan Le, fallen in battle.
Steve Heimoff