Four years ago, after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, reform advocates in Los Angeles called for an end to the city’s reliance on police. Some are urging city leaders to first remove sworn police officers from traffic enforcement.
They cited persistent racial disparities in stops, searches and arrests that some say are the result of failed crime-suppression strategies in South Los Angeles that have alienated generations of black and brown Angelenos. They called on the city to limit how often police pull people over for minor offenses and began envisioning a future in which unarmed city workers take over most traffic duties.
This week, City Council authorized a study to find out how to do that while adding more speed humps, roundabouts and other street improvements to reduce speeding and unsafe driving.
“I think the city of Los Angeles can lead the country,” said Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early supporters.
The council voted 13-0 to direct city transportation staff and other departments to return a feasibility report within 90 days on the costs and logistics of a series of proposals, including: Creating unarmed civilian teams to respond to and investigate certain transportation issues accidents; limiting fines in poorer neighborhoods; and stopping parking for minor infractions, such as expired stickers or air fresheners hanging from rear-view mirrors.
Advocates with the Move LA coalition, which includes Community Alliance, Catalyst California and Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, are cautiously optimistic about Wednesday’s vote, which they say is a long-awaited moment. But they also say they fear the road ahead is long and fraught with bureaucratic hurdles that have stymied past attempts at reform.
Before the meeting, dozens of organizers held a press conference and rally outside City Hall, holding signs and shouting slogans such as “The people unite and will never be defeated.” Activists such as Leslie Johnson of the Community Alliance have vowed to keep up pressure on public officials to ensure the findings are not buried.
Johnson said they were celebrating the anticipated victory in downtown Los Angeles “but also letting the City Council know we’re paying attention.” Some speakers cited the examples of Keenan Anderson and others who died in traffic accidents with local police, or recounted the devastating impact of being pulled over.
Dominic Choi, the city’s interim administrator, said Wednesday he was waiting to see what changes the City Council might propose before evaluating it. But, he said, if done properly and consistent with the Constitution, traffic stops are a good tool to help address violent crime in communities.
“Our job is public safety, and we will do our best to use the tools provided to us to improve public safety,” he said. “So if we’re restricted, I’m going to do roll call, I’m going to talk about this policy change or this law and encourage our officers.”
The debate over the role police should play in improving traffic safety comes against the backdrop of an alarming year-long rise in road deaths and injuries. Some traffic safety advocates say continued crashes, particularly involving pedestrians and cyclists and in low-income neighborhoods, show the city needs to step up its crackdown on reckless driving.
Several city councilors said at Wednesday’s meeting they believed the proposal was a win-win: addressing road safety issues while freeing police to deal with more serious crime.
The city’s streets remain among the deadliest in the country.
Traffic fatalities hit a record high last year, with 336 people killed in crashes citywide, up from 312 in 2022, surpassing homicide deaths, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. This is the highest number since the city began counting more than two decades ago. More than half of those killed – 179 – were pedestrians. Serious injuries have also been on the rise in recent years.
While experts say speed is a factor in many serious crashes, police issued citations for dangerous drivers down 28% between 2021 and 2022, in part according to the Los Angeles Police Department’s application for more traffic enforcement funding from the Office of Traffic Safety. It’s staffing reductions.
Los Angeles Department of Transportation spokesman Colin Sweeney said in a statement that the agency “looks forward to continuing to work with the Mayor, City Council and partner agencies to advance these recommendations and keep our streets safe for all Angelenos.”
In Los Angeles, as in many other cities across the United States, Floyd’s murder in 2020 sparked calls for sweeping police reforms, with officials pledging to start looking at ways to adopt new strategies to keep communities safe. The city’s transportation department was ordered to prepare a report on alternatives to traffic enforcement — a precursor to any legislation.
But after years of delays, initial optimism gave way to concern, and then anger, as activists and some council members worried the window for sweeping change was closing and Los Angeles fell further behind other cities that had studied the issue.
When the study was finally released last year, it proved what many advocates had long argued: Los Angeles could follow the lead of cities like Philadelphia and Berkeley, which have reduced police enforcement of many traffic violations, but only Improve road safety through major infrastructure upgrades.
“From our perspective, there’s no need for another feasibility study; many cities across the country have already adopted a variety of these reforms,” Chauncee Smith of the advocacy group Catalyst California said in an interview this week. “Our focus is on changing conditions rather than punishing a person for something they did or didn’t do.”
He and other advocates cite a growing body of research from other cities that shows road improvements along high-harm street corridors are more effective at changing driver behavior and ultimately reducing driver behavior than the threat of a ticket. Number of traffic-related deaths and serious injuries. Instead of paying for more traffic officers, they say the city should invest in upgrades such as narrower streets, dedicated bike lanes and clearer crosswalks.
Meanwhile, advocates say the city should consider adopting a “means-based” sliding fee model — such as mailing vouchers to motorists to help pay for repairs such as broken taillights — that would help improve safety, without unnecessarily criminalizing traffic violators.
Johnson, Smith and others also advocate for a less punitive approach that does not repeat the harm caused by past efforts and an outright ban on so-called pretext stops, in which police stop someone for a minor infraction to investigate whether More serious crimes have occurred.
The department has reined in the practice in recent years under intense public pressure but has never given up. But further changes would likely require legislation and could face stiff opposition from police unions such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
A coalition representing the city’s rank-and-file police officers released a list of low-level calls it deemed did not require police intervention: Traffic duties were not one of them. While top LAPD officials have expressed a willingness to give up some traffic duties in the past, other law enforcement experts have dismissed similar proposals as fanciful, especially amid an increase in dangerous behavior such as street takeovers and illegal racing.
A 2022 survey of Los Angeles residents conducted by Loyola Marymount University shows public opinion is sharply divided on the use of unarmed traffic police or other alternatives, such as civilian response teams, to deal with traffic problems.
city news agency contributed to this report.
