The Brief

In May, residents of 577 apartments in Barrington Plaza, an imposing complex of three towers near the UCLA campus, received eviction notices. It would be the largest eviction from rent-controlled housing in Los Angeles in at least four decades.

When the evictions were announced, Barrington Plaza’s owner, Douglas Emmett Inc., said in a news release that was part of a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that residents needed to move out in order for it to make fire safety upgrades required by the city of Los Angeles. There have been two fires at the complex, in 2013 and 2020. After the 2020 fire, the city declared eight of the floors of one of the towers unfit for occupancy.

The owner said the city made its approval of a permit to restore the fire-damaged floors contingent “upon the installation of sprinklers and other life safety equipment.” The safety improvements, including installing sprinklers, “cannot be accomplished without vacating all three towers,” the company news release said. The work “can take several years at a cost of over $300 million,” the news release added.

The company continued to cite the city requirements as the reason for the evictions to the City Council and its investors, and news stories reported it as a fact.

But a city spokesperson said there are no such requirements. When contacted by Capital & Main, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety said it has not mandated the work the building owner said was required. “No enhancements were requested or required by LADBS,” Department of Building and Safety spokesperson Gail Gaddi said in an email response to questions.

The city requires the installation of fire sprinklers in residential towers built after 1974, but Barrington Plaza was completed in 1961, well before then. “The building’s age pre-dates required sprinkler installation,” Gaddi said.

If the fire safety renovations are not in fact required, the company has misinformed the public about the reason for the mass eviction. Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, an organization supporting the tenants in a lawsuit to block the evictions, said the revelation that the city disputes the company’s claims “will hopefully give more of our elected officials, city council and city attorney the courage to speak out and denounce Douglas Emmett for these clearly unjust evictions.”

The company maintains that its costly fire safety upgrades are required by the city. “We stand by all previous comments and all filings with the SEC,” spokesperson Eric Rose told Capital & Main in an email.

When asked directly about the city’s statement that no fire safety work is required because of the age of the building, Rose declined to provide evidence of those requirements, citing pending litigation.

Barrington Plaza’s owner filed a lawsuit against its insurers in early October in which it argued that the L.A. Department of Building and Safety issued “a directive that Barrington include a code-compliant sprinkler system in all three towers at Barrington Plaza.” The lawsuit also noted that the Los Angeles Fire Department “advised Barrington that it must install fire sprinklers at Barrington Plaza.” Fire department officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Barrington Pacific LLC, the Douglas Emmett subsidiary that owns the complex, claimed that more than a dozen of its insurance companies pressured the city to drop safety requirements for the repair work in order to avoid a substantial payout. The suit claims the insurance companies contacted fire and building officials “on multiple occasions in recent months in an effort to convince them to retract or soften their directives relating to the installation of a sprinkler system at Barrington Plaza.”

Tenants and their advocates said the evictions are part of a strategy to pave the way for a high-end apartment complex that can command significantly higher rents.

“This is going to be premiere property on the Westside, three state of the art high-rises with all the amenities,” said Robert Lawrence, a Barrington Plaza tenant who faces a May 2024 move-out date. “They’re going to charge, you know, double or triple the rents.” Lawrence currently pays $2,400 per month for his one-bedroom apartment.

The planning department approved the exterior remodeling plans with little fanfare on May 11, a few days after the eviction notices were served to the tenants.

Those plans include new amenities such as balconies, lush landscaped gardens, glazed windows, a state-of-the-art gym, updated storefronts and a refurbished pool area complete with cabanas. The proposed new name, “Landmark Plaza,” aligns Barrington Plaza with its more luxurious neighbor, a Douglas Emmett tower called “The Landmark.” That 34-story apartment building leases 607-square-foot studio apartments for monthly rents ranging between $3,800 and $5,000.

More than 50 people protested outside the corporate office of their landlord, Douglas Emmett Inc., in Santa Monica on Thursday, Aug. 10.

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Victoria Ivie

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In May, Douglas Emmett invoked the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict rent-controlled tenants if their apartments will no longer be used as rental housing. Owners can in the future return those units to the rental market, under certain conditions and sometimes penalties.

The company said on its Ellis Act application that it is undecided as to the property’s future use. “At this time, the owners of Barrington Plaza are removing the units from the market and have options as to how those units will change, be rehabilitated through new life safety measures or become something different,” Rose said in an email. He would not say what those options were. Most tenants left in September, but 170 tenants who are at least 62 years old or have a disability have until May 8, 2024, to depart.

Tenants filed a lawsuit against Douglas Emmett in Los Angeles County Superior Court in May to block the initial evictions, which began in early September. The judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction as the lawsuit makes its way through the court. The dispute with tenants centers on conflicting interpretations of the Ellis Act. The tenants argue that the 1985 state law is designed for landlords who intend to permanently remove apartments from the rental market. Douglas Emmett, meanwhile, asserts that the Ellis Act does not address the landlord’s intentions, and that the years-long building renovation justifies its use. There has been little attention paid to Douglas Emmett’s widely publicized claim that city mandates prompted the landlord to invoke the law in the first place.

In fact, the insurance companies’ intervention in the Barrington Plaza’s permitting process is long-standing. Back in August 2020, an engineering firm acting on their behalf submitted a report to building officials arguing that the three towers should not fall under the city’s fire sprinkler law, according to a Capital & Main review of the Department of Building and Safety’s internal emails.

In June 2022, Joe Vo, a structural engineering assistant at the department, concurred with their conclusions, writing to an engineer at the firm, “under my permit review, I will not be asking for fire sprinklers” unless the building will be used as a gathering place for large numbers of people.

Fire safety experts supported installing fire sprinklers in the towers. In the 2020 fire, the second in seven years, 13 people were injured, and a college foreign exchange student died.

But some said that adding fire sprinklers to the buildings can be done at a lower cost and with less disruption than the approach planned for Barrington Plaza. “I’ve just never heard of such a thing that they have to evacuate all three buildings,” said Todd Golden, business manager for Sprinkler Fitters U.A. Local Union 709. “It’s not part of what we do,” he added. Even if the job is more disruptive, occupants can temporarily be housed in hotels or in a building’s empty apartments, said Golden, who is an experienced sprinkler installer and was invited by a tenant to tour the complex last summer.

Golden estimated the cost of installing fire sprinklers at $10 million for each tower, for a total of $30 million.

Golden’s cost estimate is in line with that of Adel Salah-Eddine, now assistant chief in the Building and Safety Department’s Permit and Engineering Bureau. Eddine sought an estimate from an engineering firm for adding sprinklers and other fire safety upgrades to one of the three towers in 2021. The cost ranged from $3.5 million to $7.5 million, according to an internal department email.

But Emmett spokesperson Rose stressed that the fire safety job the company is undertaking at Barrington Plaza goes well beyond the installation of fire sprinklers, which is what is required under the city ordinance for newer buildings. Ceilings and stairwells will be rebuilt, walls demolished and replaced and utilities will be upgraded, he said. Smoke barriers will be installed around elevators, and the company will replace windows with fire-rated glass, he added.

Randy Roxson, a lawyer who serves as a consultant to the Sprinkler Fitters U.A. Local Union 709, has been advocating for a city ordinance that would require all pre-1974 high-rise apartment buildings to install sprinklers, a campaign that gained steam after the second Barrington Plaza fire. A former firefighter, Roxson applauds Douglas Emmett for undertaking the fire safety project. But he fears the widely publicized price tag and the prospect of mass evictions during a housing crisis could make city leaders shy about requiring sprinkler retrofits in older high-rise housing, he said.

Damage from a fire at the Barrington Plaza apartments is seen on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020. A fire broke out on the sixth floor, injuring 8 people.

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David Wagner

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Fran Campbell, an attorney who represents the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association, said tenants should be protected from eviction regardless of the scope of the fire safety work. She said that tenants covered by rent control should be housed under what’s known as a “tenant habitability plan,” which provides them temporary relocation during a disruptive renovation. “They’ve got to move people out and move them back in,” she said.

Housing advocates, meanwhile, worry that hundreds more units could be lost if landlords use the Barrington Plaza mass eviction as a playbook for how to empty rent-stabilized high-rise buildings to bring in higher-paying tenants. There are “similarly situated rent-controlled buildings that could be affected as this tactic is allowed to persist,” said Marissa Roy, a civil rights attorney who has been consulting with tenant advocates. In 2021, there were 55 high-rise residential buildings built before 1974 that still lack sprinklers because the city does not mandate them, according to the 2021 city report.

Tenants said they would be glad to live in a safer building, but they are not convinced that they should have to lose their homes as a result. About a dozen gathered around the pool on a recent day in October for coffee and pastries. The sun was bright, but many of the deck chairs were empty. Avy Jozay, who rents a one bedroom apartment for $1,800, has not found anything on the Westside to match what he has at Barrington Plaza on the Westside, where the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,053, according to Apartments.com. A phone repair technician, he’s currently unemployed. “I’m scared. I’m nervous,” he said.

All you have to do is grab a drink with a friend, eavesdrop at a coffee shop, or open your eyes to see that entertainment professionals in L.A. are hurting these days. Last year there was a 16% decline in filming in the region, according to Film LA, and between 2022 and 2024, L.A. County is estimated to have lost more than 42,000 motion picture-related jobs.

I know this pain, personally. I was a TV writer for years, but my last writer’s room job was in 2021. Luckily, I was able to pivot to copywriting as I continue to work on my own projects, but I do wonder what the rest of my colleagues are up to. Where have the thousands of highly skilled entertainment professionals gone?

Turns out, school.

Specifically, to become therapists.

I first noticed this trend over a decade ago in 2013. I had just moved back to L.A. from New York and I started seeing a new therapist. Over the course of our sessions, she revealed to me that she used to be an actor — and quite a successful one. She was a co-star on a hit sitcom for nine seasons.

But despite the consistent work, she wasn’t fulfilled. She said acting was mostly sitting around in a trailer waiting and she craved more intellectual stimulation. So she went back to school and became a therapist, the irony being that she never fully escaped Hollywood. Today, as an L.A. based therapist, she spends most of her days listening to frustrated actors and writers complain about the biz. Ahh, the circle of life!

Not only was my therapist a former actor, I started to notice more and more of my peers and friends making the switch. I met Alan, 40, who prefers to be anonymous because he doesn’t want his patients knowing about his private life, at a co-working space. We both belonged to a charming apartment-turned-writer’s haven in Silver Lake.

At the time, Alan was a busy film producer, plugging away at his own feature script on the side. But despite having a shiny career working with hip actors and directors, he wasn’t happy.

He remembers going to schmoozy parties where everyone would name drop and brag about what they were working on.

“I had all those fancy things to drop, too, but it meant nothing, it didn’t make me feel any better about myself,” he said. “If I can’t even talk about what I’m up to without feeling sad, that’s kind of a problem.”

Alan started to realize maybe producing wasn’t his destiny. He was going through the motions. Things started to fall into place when he started therapy.

“Therapy made me feel more like myself. I just felt a little bit more enlivened… the rest of the week kind of deadened me,” he said.

He loved how real and deep the conversations were and became intrigued by the idea of becoming a therapist himself. He started taking a few psychology classes and was instantly hooked. Now, he has a thriving private practice and hasn’t looked back.

Primal emotions

Julie Mond is a therapist and an actor. Unlike Alan, Mond still loves acting, it’s not something she grew out of. She just needed a more stable career as she continued to pursue her passion. Becoming a therapist has actually liberated her to focus on the kind of acting she actually wants to do. Because she’s financially stable she can now pick and choose the kinds of projects that feel worth her time.

When I ask Mond why so many entertainment professionals become therapists she reflects on a couple of things. She said performers and directors crave “connecting authentically, being present moment-to-moment, being real and honest. We’re digging for these primal emotions.” All things you have to do as a therapist.

She also has another theory: “A lot of artists go to therapy. Many of us who become therapists have been in therapy and it's changed our lives. I think people in L.A. have been on a healing journey and want to give back.”

Charley Lang, who teaches at Antioch University.

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Jaymes Mihaliak

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Courtesy Charley Lang

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Even though I'm personally meeting more people who are becoming therapists, I wondered if it was an actual trend or just a coincidence.

So I talked with psychology professor Charley Lang at Antioch University to get his take. Lang, who's been teaching psychology for 30 years, said that in his graduate classes, at least 50% of the students come from entertainment careers.

When I asked why they make the switch, he’s blunt: stability.

That’s why Lang himself became a therapist decades ago.

Lang was an actor on Broadway, but eventually hit a wall.

“I had a nice career as an actor, I essentially got to do everything I wanted to do," he said. "But then I was in my late 30s and I was like, ‘Do I always want to be praying for another guest spot on a sitcom in order to feel secure and OK?’”

Does he have any regrets or miss acting? On the contrary, he tells a story:

“I had become a therapist and stopped acting and a friend of mine was directing a play at the Ahmanson and he was like, ‘Please do this play.’ And I was able to figure it out and I was just dipping my toe back in to see what it was like and it was a six-week run of the play. And at the end of the first week I remember standing in the wings waiting to make my entrance and thinking, ‘Oh my god haven’t we already told this freaking story?’ It was like Groundhog Day. It was the same story over and over.”

As a therapist, he said he loves that every day is different.

The point isn’t that working in entertainment is bad and therapy is perfect. To me, the takeaway is that it’s never too late to make a change. That just because something used to work for you doesn’t mean you’re committed to doing it forever.

Or in Mond's case, maybe there is a way to continue doing what you love, but more sustainably.

In today’s fragile and volatile job market, it’s nice to know that you can always begin again. Just because a job or career ends, doesn’t mean your life is over.

If, in the future, I’m too fried, burnt out, or tired of the rollercoaster of being a writer, maybe I’ll embark on a second career.

But until then, I’m still riding the dragon.

Folks, we’ve reached peak art-weird. There’s a group show opening Sunday in an abandoned Sizzler. I am not making this up. Get your fill at the art fairs around town — Frieze, The Other Art Fair, Butter and Felix, for starters — or explore some of the neighborhoods with galleries, like Melrose Hill, West Hollywood and the Arts District. You’re sure to see a lot. It’s almost like we live in a city where you could just wander around and randomly come across things.

If music is more your thing, Licorice Pizza has your go-tos. On Friday, German singer-songwriter and producer Monolink’s "The Beauty Of It All Tour" stops at The Wiltern, Brandi Carlile is with The Head And The Heart at the Forum and the Fiery Furnaces are at the Masonic Lodge. At the Peacock Theater, there’s an epic “Legends Of Hip Hop” bill with Big Daddy Kane, Kurtis Blow, Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel & Scorpio from The Furious Five, Doug E. Fresh, KRS‐One and more. Saturday, experimental hip-hop group Clipping is at the Fonda, and the artist formerly known as June Marieezy — (((O))) — is at a cool new Chinatown venue called Pacific Electric. Or you can spend the whole weekend at Ace Mission Studios in Boyle Heights, immersed in Factory 93’s two-day underground techno festival, Skyline L.A.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can visit the community hub East L.A. Film Shop, dance like it’s the 70s at the immersive theater experience Brassroots District: L.A. ’74 and head to the new Studio Ghibli exhibit at the Academy Museum with superfan Makenna Sievertson.

Events

Amadeus

Through Sunday, March 15
Pasadena Playhouse
39 S. El Molino, Pasadena
COST: FROM $48; MORE INFO

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Jeff Lorch

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Pasadena Playhouse

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Our friends at the L.A. Times called the new production of Amadeus at Pasadena Playhouse a “marvel to behold,” and I don’t think you can get a bigger rave than that. Tony winner Jefferson Mays plays Salieri in director Darko Tresnjak’s (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) take on Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play about the rivalry between Salieri and Mozart in 19th-century Vienna.

Spooky Stories After Dark

Saturday, February 28, 7 p.m.
The Wolves
519 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE, TWO DRINK MINIMUM; MORE INFO

One of my favorite L.A. Instagram follows is Spooky Foodie, aka Ansley Layne, who goes to restaurants in L.A. and tells all about the ghosts haunting your favorite haunts. She’s bringing her ghost stories and encouraging you to tell your own at Spooky Stories After Dark, a Moth-inspired storytelling competition night at The Wolves downtown. After each story, the speaker will be interviewed by Spooky Foodie and co-host Your Cousin Trev. You can also expect some surprise celebrity guests.

Sleep, a film by Andy Warhol featuring John Giorno

Friday, February 27, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Marciano Art Foundation
4357 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Film stills of John Giorno in Andy Warhol's Sleep. New York, NY, United States, 1963. Photo credit: Andy Warhol. 8 x 10 inches, b/w, photographic print.

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Studio Rondinone/Courtesy of the John Giorno Collection, John Giorno Archives. Studio Rondinone, New York, NY.

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Andy Warhol

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It’s not every day you can screen Sleep, the 1964 groundbreaking avant-garde film by Andy Warhol, so take advantage and grab a ticket for this evening at the Marciano Art Foundation. Coinciding with their John Giorno: No Nostalgia show, the film is five hours and 21 minutes of artist and poet (and Warhol’s then-lover) John Giorno sleeping, so needless to say, you probably don’t need to be there the whole time. The galleries will be open throughout the entire screening, so it’s also a fun chance to see some late-night art!

Black History Greens Festival

Saturday, February 28, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
Virginia Ave. Park 
2200 Virginia Ave., Santa Monica
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy City of Santa Monica

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Check out three greens-cooking demonstrations with local chefs at the Black History Greens Festival in Santa Monica. The day also features family activities, including book readings and giveaways, plus performances. KJLH radio’s Arron “BOBO” Arnell returns for a second year as the master of ceremonies, and DJ Dense will be spinning throughout the event.

48th L.A. Chinatown Firecracker-Lunar New Year Celebration

Saturday, February 28 to Sunday, March 1
943 Broadway (starting line), Chinatown 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Firecracker 10K

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Usher in the Year of the Fire Horse with the annual run/walk in Chinatown, plus a celebration with lion dances, music, a dog contest and more. Saturday features the long 20-mile run and century bike ride, while Sunday is a festival atmosphere with the 5K and 10K races, fun runs, kids' activities and more.

Opera Noir at L.A. Opera’s Akhnaten 

Saturday, February 28, 7:30 p.m.
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A. 
COST: Opening night from $134, other performances from $44; MORE INFO

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Craig T. Mathew

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L.A. Opera

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L.A. Opera welcomes back Philip Glass’ opera about ancient Egypt, Akhnaten, featuring John Holiday as the title king and mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce as his queen, Nefertiti. The opera is on at the Dorothy Chandler through March 22, but opening night is also Opera Noir, an event with the San Fernando Valley Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, which brings Black artistry and community together with opera. No matter which night you go, get there early for a pre-performance talk with Dr. Tiffany Kuo in Stern Grand Hall one hour before every performance.

Art Fairs

You have your pick of art fairs and related art events all weekend long. From the big Frieze Art Fair, which has been the jewel of L.A. Art Week since its launch here in 2019; to Felix, which makes a very cool use of space at the Hollywood Roosevelt; to The Other Art Fair in a new Culver City location (with art you might actually be able to afford for your wall); to the Black-artist focus of Butter in Inglewood, there’s really no shortage of places to see the newest artists’ work as well as old favorites.

Frieze L.A.

Through Sunday, March 1
Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Ave., Santa Monica
COST: FROM $79; MORE INFO 

Butter

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Courtesy Butter

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Through Sunday, March 1
Hollywood Park
1011 Stadium Drive, Inglewood 
COST: $60; MORE INFO

Felix Art Fair

Through Sunday, March 1
Hollywood Roosevelt 
7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
COST: $75; MORE INFO

The Other Art Fair

Through Sunday, March 1
3Labs
8461 Warner Drive, Culver City
FROM $30; MORE INFO

Post-Fair

Through Saturday, February 28 
128 Fifth St., Santa Monica
COST: $12; MORE INFO

We're in for another warm and sunny day in SoCal.

Daytime highs for the beaches will reach the mid-70s and up to the low 80s more inland. Downtown L.A. will see temperatures up to 83 degrees.

Temperatures for the valley communities and the Inland Empire will reach the mid-80s. The western San Fernando Valley will see temps in the upper 80s, up to 89 degrees for Woodland Hills.

In Coachella Valley, expect another day with highs in the 90s, up to 96 degrees.

Friday is expected to be the warmest day of the week.

Newly released data from the city show that Los Angeles police officers use minor traffic stops as a way to investigate Black and Latino people on suspicion of committing a more serious crime at a higher rate than their share of the citywide population.

The LAPD adopted a policy about so-called pretextual stops and began tracking the practice in 2022.

In a report released at the end of January, the city’s chief legislative analyst found that Black people were involved in nearly 31% of pretextual stops conducted by LAPD officers between spring 2022 and fall 2025. According to 2023 Census estimates, Black people make up 8% of the city’s population.

According to the report, "Hispanic/Latino" people, who make up just less than half the city’s population, were the subjects of 56% of pretextual stops.

That analysis, along with a separate report by LAPD, found that of the more than 760,000 people involved in traffic stops between spring of 2022 and fall of 2025, 9% to 10% of them were stopped pretextually.

Chauncee Smith, an associate director of the racial justice-focused nonprofit Catalyst California, said LAPD’s data is “under inclusive” since it relies on officers subjectively deciding when a stop is pretextual.

He said an analysis of data from Catalyst California, published in February, demonstrates that pretextual stops don’t result in evidence discovery enough to make up for the negative impacts of the practice.

“It's affecting the lives of many Black and Latinx Angelenos on an everyday basis,” Smith said, adding that pretextual stops often result in harassment, dehumanization and excessive ticketing or fining of communities of color.

Pretextual stops 

Police sometimes use violations of the vehicle code to stop drivers and investigate them for a more serious crime unrelated to the traffic stop, such as possessing drugs or firearms, according to Deepak Premkumar, a research fellow for the Public Policy Institute of California.

 ”Law enforcement officers see tons of violations, and we give them a lot of discretion to determine who they should stop and when,” Premkumar told LAist.

A plausible example of what a pretextual stop could look like is if police see a car matching the description of one that was involved in a crime in the area, then pull that car over for a broken taillight, Premkumar said.

The policy the LAPD adopted in 2022 outlines that officers:

• Can only conduct pretextual stops as long as they are “acting upon articulable information” that the person is close to a serious crime that’s worth investigating. 
• Should minimize stops for minor equipment violations, such as broken taillights, unless the violation “interferes with public safety.”
• State the reason for the stop, whether pretextual or not, while their body-worn cameras are filming.

Despite the adoption of the policy, Catalyst California’s analysis found that the proportion of all officer-initiated stops that are for minor traffic violations has “remained relatively constant since 2019.”

Racial disparities

The analysis from the city’s chief legislative analyst included a comparison of pretextual stop rates for different ethnic and racial groups in L.A. compared to their share of the citywide population.

The analysis found that "Hispanic/Latino" and Black people were overrepresented in data on pretextual stops compared to their share of the population.

L.A. Police Capt. Shannon White drafted the department’s report of the same data, which did not include an ethnic or racial breakdown of those involved in pretextual stops.

At a Los Angeles Police Commission Meeting in February, when she presented the department’s analysis, White said Census estimates for the city don’t necessarily align with “the actual breakdown of our suspects of crime,” who, theoretically, are the subjects of pretextual stops.

“When you look at the actual breakdown of our suspects of crime…what you will find is that they skew towards communities of color for various societal reasons,” White said.

According to the LAPD’s analysis, people in Central and South L.A. were subjects of pretextual at higher rates than in the Valley and West L.A.

Some commissioners at the meeting questioned that disparity.

“Something just doesn't add up,” Commission President Teresa Sánchez-Gordon said. “Is it racial profiling? Is that bias? Implicit, explicit bias that's in the report?”

Discovery rates

The police’s analysis found that searches during pretextual stops yielded contraband, such as firearms and other weapons or drugs, in about every 3 in 10 cases. “Narco-related” evidence is what’s most commonly found in the searches.

Catalyst California’s report looked more specifically at different kinds of searches and how likely they are to lead to evidence discovery.

The nonprofit found that since 2022, when officers used consent-only searches during stops for minor traffic violations, they discovered evidence 3% to 10% of the time. The rate was similarly low when the person stopped was on parole or probation.

According to Catalyst California’s analysis, the type of search most likely to lead to discovery of evidence is when there’s an existing search or arrest warrant for the person stopped.

“This was likely because they occurred in situations when there was a higher likelihood of a significant violation, beyond mere pretext,” the nonprofit's researchers wrote.