The Brief

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.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill aimed at protecting children who are abused.

The law, which went into effect this week, is named “Gabriel’s Law,” after Gabriel Fernandez — an 8-year-old boy in Palmdale who died in 2013 after being tortured and abused by his mother and her boyfriend.

“It devastated the community. Still has,” said State Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), who worked on legislation related to Gabriel’s case for years. “It hasn't gone away, right? It’s something we still acknowledge.”

Since Fernandez’s death, the Antelope Valley has seen a number of high-profile child deaths at the hands of their parents.

The new law requires social workers to make sure a child gets emergency medical care when needed, and it makes it easier to prosecute social workers who knowingly falsify records.

Officials said there had been warning signs about Fernandez’s abuse, but social workers with the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services failed to follow up on them. The high-profile case prompted internal reforms in the agency.

What happened to Gabriel

Gabriel died in May 2013, after months of abuse from his mother and her boyfriend. He was found with a number of injuries, including a fractured skull, broken ribs and BB pellets lodged in his body. His mother and her boyfriend were both sentenced.

A teacher had reported signs of abuse to the county, but social workers did not remove him from the home. Then they ended the investigation. Prosecutors charged the social workers with child abuse, but the charges were later dismissed.

“He was literally tortured. And there were many, many, many documented events, and there are many encounters that he had with people that lacked follow-up,” Lackey said.

What does the law change?

Before this week, the law said that social workers may authorize care if a child needs immediate emergency care, but did not require it. Gabriel’s law requires a social worker to secure medical care for a child.

“ They call for an ambulance or escort the child to an emergency room— make sure a physician has the opportunity to provide some level of remedy and documentation of the injury,” Lackey said.

It also clarifies the law so that social workers who are guilty of falsifying or destroying public records can be imprisoned or fined.

Why did the law take so long to change?

Lackey’s previous legislative efforts related to Fernandez’s case failed over the years. He introduced at least five different pieces of legislation that failed to advance.

“I'm not even saying that I blame the pushback and the concern, because if you're too aggressive, there's a tendency to accuse people of wrongdoing when they are not guilty of wrongdoing, so we wanted to make sure that the balance was reasonable,” he said.

Lackey terms out this year. “We're trying to do something as a community to not only pay tribute to [Gabriel], but to prevent it from reoccurring,” he said.

A series of community listening sessions will give residents a chance to weigh in on whether streets, monuments and public parks bearing the name of former labor leader César Chávez should be renamed. 

The sessions, scheduled for October and led by the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office, come after the county launched a survey in June asking the public what mattered most to them in a renaming process.

In March, the Board of Supervisors approved a motion, authored by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath, to rename county honors following a New York Times investigation that alleged Chávez sexually assaulted women and girls within the United Farm Workers movement, including fellow labor leader Dolores Huerta.

“The County of Los Angeles has a firm responsibility to ensure any public recognitions reflect our shared values of justice, dignity, and respect,” Solis said in a statement at the time.

Following the investigation, some Eastside residents called for Cesar E. Chavez Avenue to revert to its former name, Brooklyn Avenue, and for murals depicting Chávez’s face to be taken down.

The board also approved a motion by Solis to rename the César Chávez holiday as Farmworkers Day across the county, which will continue to be observed on the last Monday in March instead of Chávez’s birthday on March 31.

How to weigh in

Three in-person community listening sessions will be held in East LA in October. Online registration is encouraged but not required. To register, click here.

Saturday, Oct. 10 – Anthony Quinn Library

Time: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Location: 3965 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Los Angeles

Saturday, Oct. 17 – Ruben F. Salazar Park

Time: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Location: 3864 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles

Note: This session will be held in Spanish only 

Saturday, Oct. 24 – East LA Service Center

Time: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Location: 133 N. Sunol Dr., Los Angeles

*Spanish-language interpretation will be available

The post LA County wants your input on renaming Cesar E. Chavez Avenue. Join these meetings to weigh in appeared first on LA Local.

Republican State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio is seeking to distance the voter ID measure Californians will see on their November ballot from President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict voting at the federal level. During a Monday night speech at the Orange County GOP Central Committee meeting, DeMaio said the ballot measure, Proposition 39, is “not the same” as the failed federal SAVE Act, which would have required proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

Speaking to dozens of O.C. Republican leaders, DeMaio acknowledged Californians’ overwhelming embrace of mail-in voting, calling Prop. 39 a “bipartisan solution that keeps mail ballots, so that voting is convenient, but improves trust and confidence by requiring an ID to vote.”

What would Prop. 39 do?

• Prop. 39 would change California’s constitution to require voters to provide a government-issued ID when they cast a ballot.
• Mail-in voters would have to include the last four digits of that ID on the ballot envelope.
• The measure would also require election officials to use “best efforts,” using government data, to verify that voters on registration rolls are U.S. citizens, and to report annually the percentage verified.

Reaction to the ballot initiative

Supporters note that nationwide polling has shown widespread support for voter ID across political parties. They also say using a voter’s signature on their mail-in ballot to verify identity, as California currently does, delays election results and causes some valid voters to have their ballots rejected.

Opponents of Prop. 39 say the initiative feeds into President Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud, which they say are false. Opponents also say the measure would make voting more burdensome and expensive, while opening up mail voters to potential identity theft.

How Prop. 39 is being pitched to voters

The latest polling on Prop. 39 suggests it could face an uphill battle in November.

Registered Republicans make up only about one-quarter of California’s electorate, which means Prop. 39 will need significant support from Democrats and independent voters to pass.

A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found a sharp partisan divide in interest in Prop. 39, with a majority (52%) of Republican voters saying it was the ballot measure that most interested them compared to just 7% of Democrats and 23% of independent voters.

In an effort to appeal to the state’s liberal majority, DeMaio and his Reform California PAC recently launched an ad campaign aimed at persuading Trump foes that Prop 39 is unrelated to the president’s efforts to curb mail-in voting and implement stringent checks for U.S. citizenship.

“Can you dislike Trump and still vote ‘yes’ on Prop 39 for voter ID?” a voice in the ad asks. “Yes, you can.”

During his speech Monday, DeMaio said Prop. 39 would boost confidence in elections “whether you think voter fraud is a big problem or a small problem.”

In a subsequent interview with LAist, DeMaio said he thinks voter fraud is a problem. “ How much fraud is hard to prove because we're not looking for it; we don't have internal controls,” he said.

Trump has claimed that large numbers of noncitizens are voting. In California, a handful of recent cases have made headlines. But nationwide efforts to find and prosecute noncitizen voters have thus far turned up few culprits.

The Texas example

Julia Gomez, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, which opposes Prop. 39, blamed the decrease in voter confidence on the “chaos” sowed by people including Trump and DeMaio in questioning the integrity of elections with scant evidence of fraud.

“The way we build trust in elections is not by adding more hurdles to voting, which the data shows will disenfranchise voters every election, but by educating voters, by not lying to voters about what is and isn't a problem,” she said.

Gomez pointed to Texas as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of adding an ID requirement to mail-in voting: After Texas passed a similar requirement in 2021, a large percentage (14%) of mail-in ballots were rejected, according to a study last year from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The study found that non-white voters were more likely to have their ballots rejected. Also, many of those voters stopped casting ballots in subsequent elections.