Four years ago, after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, reform advocates in Los Angeles called for an end to the city’s reliance on police. Some urged city leaders to start by removing sworn officers from traffic enforcement.
He cited persistent racial disparities in stops, searches and arrests, which some said have alienated generations of black and brown Angelenos in South L.A. as a result of failed crime-suppression strategies. He urged the city to limit the frequency of police stopping people for low-level offenses and to begin to envision a future in which unarmed city deputies handle most traffic duties.
This week, the City Council authorized a study to figure out how to do that — while also adding more speed bumps, roundabouts and other road modifications to reduce speeding and unsafe driving.
“I think the city of Los Angeles can lead the country,” said Council Member Marquese Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early supporters.
By a 13-0 vote, the council directed city transportation staff and other departments to come back within 90 days with a feasibility report on the cost and operation of a series of proposals, including: creating unarmed civilian squads to respond to certain traffic issues and investigate accidents; limiting fines in poor communities; and eliminating the use of stops for minor infractions such as expired tags or hanging air fresheners on the rear-view mirror.
Wednesday’s vote was viewed with cautious optimism by advocates from the Push LA coalition — which includes the Community Alliance, Catalyst California and Black Lives Matter Los Angeles — who said it was a long-awaited moment. But they also said they are concerned about the long road ahead, filled with bureaucratic hurdles that have stalled previous attempts at reform.
Before the council meeting, several dozen organizers held a news conference and rally outside City Hall, holding signs and chanting slogans such as “The people united, never defeated.” Activists such as Leslie Johnson of the Community Coalition vowed to keep up the pressure on public officials to ensure that the study results are not suppressed.
Johnson, whose South L.A. group strives for grassroots change, said they were in downtown L.A. to celebrate an expected victory “but also to let the council know we’re watching them.” Some speakers said Keenan Anderson and others who died in traffic encounters with local police, or testified about the devastating effects of being stopped.
Interim City Chief Dominic Choi said Wednesday he is waiting to see what changes the council might propose before he evaluates them. But, he said traffic stops are a good tool to help solve violent crime in the community — if conducted properly and in a constitutional manner.
“Our job is public safety, and we’re going to use the tools given to us in the best way possible to improve public safety,” he said. “So if there are restrictions placed on us, I’ll go to roll call, and I’ll talk about this policy change or this law and encourage our officers.”
The debate over what role police should play in enforcing traffic safety has emerged amid a disturbing year-long rise in road deaths and injuries. Some transportation safety advocates say the continued traffic accidents, particularly involving pedestrians and bicyclists and in low-income neighborhoods, show the city needs to crack down more heavily on reckless driving.
Some council members said during Wednesday’s meeting they saw the proposal as a win-win for both sides: It would focus on street safety while freeing up officers to tackle more serious crimes.
The city’s roads remain some of the most dangerous in the country.
Last year, 336 people died in traffic crashes, a record high – up from 312 in 2022 – more than the number of people killed in homicides, according to Los Angeles Police Department data. It’s the highest number since the city began keeping statistics more than two decades ago. More than half of those killed, 179, were pedestrians. Serious injury incidents have also risen in recent years.
Though experts say speed is a factor in many serious crashes, police issued 28% fewer citations to dangerous drivers between 2021 and 2022, due in part to reduced staffing, according to the LAPD’s application for more traffic enforcement funds from the Office of Traffic Safety.
Los Angeles Department of Transportation spokesman Colin Sweeney said in a statement that the agency “looks forward to continuing our work with the Mayor, City Council and partner agencies to advance these recommendations and ensure the safety of our streets for all Angelenos.”
In LA, as in many other US cities, Floyd’s 2020 killing prompted calls for massive policing reforms, as officials vowed to begin looking at ways to adopt new strategies to keep communities safe. The city’s transportation department was ordered to prepare a report on options for traffic enforcement — a precursor to any legislation.
But after years of delays, initial optimism turned to concern, then anger, as activists and some council members worried that the window for radical change was closing, and that L.A. was falling even further behind other cities that have already studied the issue.
When the study was finally released last year, it made the same argument many advocates have long made: Los Angeles should follow in the footsteps of cities like Philadelphia and Berkeley, which have reduced police enforcement for many traffic violations, but only with major infrastructure upgrades that improve road safety.
“From our perspective, there’s no need for another feasibility study; there are many cities across the country that have already adopted these reforms,” Chauncey Smith of the advocacy group Catalyst California said in an interview this week. “We’re focused on changing circumstances, not on punishing an individual for something he or she did or didn’t do.”
He and other advocates cited growing research in other cities showing that street improvements along high-injury road corridors were more effective at changing driver behavior, and ultimately reducing the number of traffic-related deaths and serious injuries, than the threat of being ticketed. He said that instead of paying more traffic officers, the city should invest in upgrades such as narrower streets, dedicated bike lanes and more clearly marked pedestrian crosswalks.
Also, advocates say, the city should consider a sliding “means-based” fee model — such as vouchers sent to motorists to help cover repairs for broken taillights — which would help improve safety without unnecessarily criminalizing traffic violators or driving them into mounting debt.
Johnson, Smith and others also advocated for a less punitive approach that wouldn’t repeat the harm done by previous efforts, and for a blanket ban on so-called pre-emptive stops, in which police use a minor infraction as a pretext to stop a person to determine if a more serious offense has been committed.
The department has curbed the practice in recent years under intense public pressure, but never abandoned it. But further changes could require legislation and face stiff opposition from police unions such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
The league, which represents the city’s rank-and-file officers, released a list of low-level calls that it doesn’t think require police intervention: Traffic duty was not one of them. Although top LAPD officials have signaled a willingness to give up some traffic duties in the past, other law enforcement experts have dismissed similar proposals as fanciful, especially at a time when sometimes risky behaviors such as street grabbing and illegal racing are on the rise.
A 2022 Loyola Marymount University poll of Los Angeles residents showed that public opinion was largely divided on the issue of using unarmed traffic officers or other alternative approaches, such as a civilian response team, to handle traffic problems.
City News Service Contributed to this report.
