SF Police Commission votes to curb racially-biased police stops

SFPD makes a traffic stop. by SF Public Defender’s Office San Francisco – The San Francisco Police Commission voted Feb. 21 to enact an historic policy (Department General Order 9.07) to curb SFPD’s use of racially-biased pretext stops. This vote comes after an unprecedented public input process that lasted more than a year and after nearly a year of bargaining with the Police Officer’s Association.& The Commission has directed SFPD to implement this policy within 90 days.& Police often use certain vehicle, pedestrian and traffic codes as a “pretext” to look for evidence of other unrelated crimes without legal justification. Police disproportionately use such stops against Black and Brown people, who are also more likely to suffer from police use of force during these interactions.& According to the SFPD’s own analysis, SFPD officers stopped Black individuals at six times the rate of white individuals, searched Black individuals at more than 10 times the rate of white individuals and used force on Black individuals at more than 21 times the rate of white individuals.& Members of the Coalition to End Biased Stops, which includes over 110 traffic safety and civil rights groups that pushed for the Commission to address the racial...