White, Hispanic and Asian drivers were the most frequently pulled over by police in the city of Davis in 2019, according to data released this week by the Davis Police Department.
When it came to arrests, police took white, Hispanic and Black people into custody the most, both for felony and misdemeanor offenses.
The agency unveiled the data in accordance with the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015, also know as Assembly Bill 953, the aim of which is to aid the elimination of racial and identity profiling in law enforcement.
It requires state and local law-enforcement agencies to collect data regarding individuals’ stops, including their perceived demographics, and report that information to the state Attorney General.
“While agencies the size of Davis PD are not required to submit data until April 2023, we have embarked upon this effort four years earlier than required,” the report notes. “To date, Davis PD remains one of the few agencies of its size to collect stop data in California.”
See the stop data here and the arrest data here, or visit www.cityofdavis.org and search for “annual reports.”
Davis police made a total of 5,561 traffic stops during 2019, according to the report. Of those, officers initiated 86 percent, and 71 percent were triggered by an alleged traffic violation. Another 20 percent stemmed from suspicion of criminal activity.
Broken down by ethnicity, nearly 50 percent of those stopped were perceived as white, 20 percent Hispanic/Latino and 12 percent Asian, followed by 9 percent Black and 5 percent Middle Eastern or South Asian. Another nearly 3 percent were multiracial.
By comparison — though exact figures vary slightly depending upon the source — Davis’ population is 56 percent white, 22 percent Asian, 14 percent Hispanic/Latino, 7 percent multiracial and just over 2 percent Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, the stop data did not specify how many of the stops involved Davis residents versus those from out of town or UC Davis, where Asian students comprise 28 percent of the student body, followed by white (25 percent) and Hispanic/Latino (21 percent) students. Just over 2 percent identified as Black/African American.
The report also makes no mention of the involved officers’ ethnicities.
Of the 2,026 stops resulting in citations or arrests — roughly 36 percent of the total stops — Middle Eastern/South Asians, Pacific Islanders and Asians were more frequently cited and least frequently arrested, the data shows. Hispanic, white and Black motorists followed, respectively. Meanwhile, Blacks accounted for highest percentage of post-stop arrests, followed by those perceived as white, Hispanic and multiracial.
Other findings listed in the stop data report:
* Reason for stop: A higher percentage of Native American (25 percent), white (24 percent) and Black (23 percent) individuals were stopped for reasonable suspicion than other racial identity groups.
* Search outcomes: Overall, 18 percent of stopped individuals were subject to a person, vehicle or other property search. Native Americans had the highest search rate (25 percent), although the overall number of stops was low (eight). The data also shows that white (21.3 percent) and Black (21.9 percent) individuals are searched at a rate six times higher than Asians (3.5 percent).
* Search yield rates: Of the stops involving a search, 291, or 30 percent, resulted in the location of contraband/evidence. Search yield rates (locating evidence/contraband subsequent to a search) was highest for Middle Eastern/South Asian (38.5 percent) and lowest for Native Americans (zero). Hispanic individuals appear to have higher search yield rates than whites (29.9 percent), Asians (26.1 percent) and Blacks (22.1 percent).
* Source of call: Overall, 86 percent of all stops meeting the RIPA data criteria were officer initiated. Of these stops, a higher percentage of Pacific Islander (100 percent) and Middle Eastern/South Asian (95.3 percent) individuals were stopped at the discretion of the officer. Conversely, a much lower percentage of Black (79.8 percent) and Native American (62.5 percent) individuals were stopped at the discretion of the officer.
Among the arrests, half of the 166 felony detentions and 45 percent of the 331 misdemeanors involved people with non-Davis addresses, that report shows, though it did not specify the types of alleged offenses that led to the arrests.
By ethnicity, white suspects comprised 55 percent of last year’s felony arrests, followed by 27 percent Hispanic and 12 percent Black. Misdemeanor arrests were 65 percent white, 20 percent Hispanic and 8 percent Black.
The charts also track juvenile arrests, which the report notes decreased by 66 percent over the last five years as the Police Department launched and developed its juvenile restorative justice program.
“It was also during this time that the Department allocated significant resources into alternative outreach and programming to include: family engagement, early interventions, crime prevention and student safety,” the report says.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene.