New state data show that Black people were stopped by Los Angeles police and sheriff’s deputies at a higher rate disproportionate to their population size.
The report by California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board found that Black people make up around 8% of the population in Los Angeles city and county, but accounted for around 23.5% of stops by the LAPD in 2022 and 17.6% of stops by the sheriff’s department in 2023.
Orange County data available for 2022 show white people were stopped 47.8% of the time, even though they made up 38.5% of the population. But Black people, who only account for 2.2% of the county’s population, made up 4.3% of stops.
The report is the first time the state board has compiled stop data from law enforcement agencies across California, and on the state level, the disparities continued.
According to the report, Black people were stopped more frequently statewide — 12.4% of the time despite accounting for just 5.4% of the population.
The report also found that Black people were searched at a rate 1.66 times higher than white people.
Latinx people also accounted for more than 40% of stops despite accounting for just over 32% of California’s population, the report found.
“The scale of data that California is collecting allows us to say definitively that profiling exists — it is a pervasive pattern across the state,” said Andrea Guerrero, co-chair of the RIPA Board and executive director of Alliance San Diego, a community organization.
LAPD and LASD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Profiling of students and those with disabilities
The state’s Racial and Identity…
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