If you are anything like me the phrase “de-fund the police” certainly gets my attention. It is a hot button in society at the moment and at least one proposed way to reduce racial disparities in policing.

With that being said, I absolutely want everyone to be treated equally and am not naïve enough that racial profiling does not exist.

In support of this statement, I point to a couple of studies that have been recently completed. The first was done in 2018 by Kelsey Shoub, currently an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina. In this study, she and her fellow researchers studied 20 million traffic stops occurring in North Carolina. The study showed that black drivers were 63% more like to be pulled over than white while driving 16 percent less than white drivers. Moreover, black drivers were 115% more likely to be searched than white drivers even though contraband was found more often on white drivers. Fine, you say….but that was in North Carolina.

Well in 2020 the Stanford Open Policing Project investigated 100 million traffic stops across the nation and found similar disparities as those noted in the North Carolina study. In addition, the study found that black drivers were less likely to be pulled over after sunset as the darkness masks race which supports a claim of bias in decisions to pull someone over.

Ok, I admit those are just studies and as we all know there are three types of lies: (1) lies; (2) damn lies; and (3) statistics. With that in mind, you are of course free to challenge the methodology of how the study was conducted.

Fine. For whatever reasons you don’t like the studies. Then how about this…John Whetsel, Chair of the National Sherriff’s Association traffic safety committee admits that racial bias in policing is a problem. Whetsel is a 50 year veteran of police enforcement in Oklahoma. In fact, until recently he was the Sherriff of the county in which I reside.

In light of the above, I think we can at least make an argument that racial bias in traffic stops may actually be a thing.

So, if it is a thing, what do you do about it? Here is where it gets interesting.

In February of this year, in an attempt to reduce racial disparities in traffic stops, the Berkley California City Council voted to de-prioritize traffic stops that were not related to public safety. This would mean that things like no seatbelt or an expired tag would not be a reason to pull someone over. Rigel Robinson, the council member proposing the initiate said the council was not trying to strip the police of the job of handing traffic stops but they are simply trying to determine where the line is to combat the racial disparities.

The good folks of the Berkley City Council are not trying to prevent the enforcement of parking violations or expired tags but instead, think this should be done through a new group of unarmed civilian servants within the city’s transportation division.

Well, our friend John Whetsel, of the National Sherriff’s Association said “To the mayor of Berkley and the city council, I would say you need to talk to the victim of a traffic crash before you do this, what I believe to be an idiotic move.”

Whetsel argues that without traffic stops, fatalities would increase and potential leads would slip through the cracks. By way of example, he points out that Timothy McVeigh, the person responsible for the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City, was pulled over and subsequently arrested for a missing license tag.

In addition, Whetsel makes the point that “most criminals drive to and from work. If it’s a burglary or a bank robbery or a homicide they’re generally not going to walk to and from the scene.”

I gotta be honest with you, Whetsel makes valid points and common sense supports what he is saying. While racial profiling may exist the movement to de-prioritize certain traffic violations is not the way to fix the situation. Too many criminals are apprehended through ordinary traffic de-prioritize the traffic stop.

Of course, I do not know the answer to how to solve this problem. Whetsel, while admitting the problem exists, believes it can be fixed through training. He may be right. Before we throw the baby out with the bathwater let’s start there. Better training on these issues and more accountability seems to be the best place to start.

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