Be Careful What You Ask For

Much has been made about traffic stop data by police haters who claim that this activity disparately affects black motorists. They even go as far as to say that black motorists are intentionally targeted. Of course, these agitators present no statistically valid or legal argument, instead they simply throw out inflammatory rhetoric to stir up racial animosity. Law enforcement agencies are easy to pick on because most executives do not have the courage to defend their front-line officers by aggressively refuting these smears and calling out the accusers for spewing their trash.

Traffic stops are an effective and lawful police activity that can be shown by research to control crime and supports vehicular safety. The United States Supreme Court has opined that a vehicle stop for even a minor traffic violation falls under the seizure element of the fourth amendment. The only thing necessary for police intervention regarding this seizure is whether the stop is reasonable under the circumstances. The fact that an articulable law violation occurred is enough to validate the stop. Minor violations are referred to as pretextual stops by officers to look for other law violations as they investigate. Criminal defense lawyers and race baiters do not like this and whine about it in court trying to get charges dismissed. Most courts do not buy it because the law on these stops is settled law.

In Whren v. United States, a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, the Justices in a unanimous decision decided that detention of a motorist is reasonable where probable cause exists to believe a traffic violation occurred because Government has a compelling interest in traffic safety. Rarely are cases before the U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously. They felt that strongly about this. And they did not stop there. They said that the “subjective intent of the officer does not invalidate the probable cause element in Fourth Amendment analysis.” Was the stop reasonable is the only thing that matters.

I mention this because there has been a sea change in terms of municipality and law enforcement agency policies when engaging in traffic enforcement. City administrators are seeing it as an opportunity to flaunt their racial sensitivity. In several cities, the police chiefs are handcuffing officers on their own volition from pro-active policing. It is flat out a social engineering experiment to create equity. That is disgusting.

The Denver, Colorado police chief, to eliminate racial disparity in crime fighting, now prohibits his officers from making traffic stops for minor violations unless there is a second reason like a more serious crime connected with it or in response to a specific ongoing crime trend in a particular neighborhood. What? Let’s look at the results.

Traffic stops plunged 50% in Denver in the first four months after the policy went into effect. In the month after that, stops fell by 59%. Car crashes have increased while crash fatalities have decreased. Citation revenue has predictably decreased as well. I do not know if there is a correlation. Just because two things happen at one time does not mean that one caused the other. The chief says that the decrease is working on decreasing pre-textual stops. I wonder if the policy was working as the chief proclaimed or if officers figured why bother making traffic stops? Also, there is not enough of a sample size to know at this point. The head of the union representing front line officers criticizes the policy because it limits the ability of officers to pull over vehicles for traffic violations and leaves offenders in the community. I wholeheartedly concur.

Traffic stops yield a treasure trove of criminal activity. People wanted on serious felony warrants can be discovered. Illegal drugs can found as can people possessing prohibited firearms who are going to or leaving drive-by shootings and street robberies. They transport these firearms in vehicles.

I have always stood against police agencies being used by city officials to generate revenue. A law enforcement agency is not a revenue generating unit of government. Obviously while enforcing traffic violations revenue will be generated but that is not the goal. The goal is the safe movement of vehicular traffic. I had to remind the Milwaukee County board of that when they complained to me at one meeting that citation revenue was down. I said so what? So were crashes and fatalities and that is our goal.

Then there is the story about the New Jersey State Police. Seems that Troopers were writing fewer and fewer traffic citations. Then tickets for speeding, drunk driving and other offenses fell by 81%. This continued for eight months. This slowdown caught the eye of New Jersey attorney who began a criminal investigation. What? I just mentioned that in Denver, officers were being directed to stop writing traffic citations. Now in New Jersey, troopers are being criminally investigated for a slowdown in writing tickets.

According to one news story the slowdown began after a release of a report found glaring racial disparities in enforcement. The agency is under a federal consent decree for alleged patterns of racial bias. So, which is it? Not enough activity or too much?

When officers are told that they are not writing enough traffic enforcement tickets, that is a de facto quota. Quota enforcement has been prohibited. In the case of the New Jersey State Troopers, what is the benchmark number that officers are being held to and who sets that number? Should all officers achieve the same amount?

All this social engineering with law enforcement frustrates officers. There might in fact be a quiet resignation in citation writing. I do not blame them. That is not criminal. If you want to call it a work slow down, fine. That is still not criminal. I still support it. You cannot on one hand accuse them of racial bias for writing too many citations and then blast them when ticket totals fall off like in New Jersey. In Denver the chief hails the decrease in enforcement as a success and in New Jersey, troopers are criminally investigated for the decreased activity. Make up your mind please.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of America’s Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com