L.A. Metro Cops Are In A Bind: Avoid Racial Profiling While Also Fighting Crime
LAPPL News Watch
April 22, 2019
After a Times investigation showing that Metro pulled over black drivers at a rate more than five times their share of the city’s population, Mayor Eric Garcetti in early February ordered the LAPD to scale back on vehicle stops like this one.
At Metro’s Temple Street headquarters, the Times article and mayor’s directive caused an uproar. Metro officers felt they were being maligned as racists for policing a part of the city where almost everyone is black or Latino.
On the ground with Metro in South L.A., the realities are more complex than statistics can capture, with decisions about which drivers to stop shaped by years of experience with possible crime indicators, from the man walking up to a parked car to the paper license plates sometimes used to hide a car’s origins.
Last year, Metro officers seized more than 700 guns and made 576 gun arrests, mostly initiated through vehicle and pedestrian stops. Two-thirds of the suspects had prior arrests for assault, burglary, robbery or weapons, according to the LAPD.
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