California police agencies should routinely
review officers’ social media, cellphones and
computers for racist, bigoted or other offensive
content that contributes to disproportionate
police stops of Black people, a state advisory
board said Monday.
The controversial recommendation comes
from community and law enforcement
representatives who analyzed nearly 4 million
vehicle and pedestrian stops by California’s 15
largest law enforcement agencies in 2019.
The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board
report was unveiled amid calls to defund police
and promises from state lawmakers to renew
efforts to strip badges from bad officers, make
more police misconduct records public, and
allow community groups to handle mental
health and drug calls where police powers may
not be needed.
People who were perceived as Black were
more than twice as likely to be stopped as their
percentage of the population would suggest,
the board said in its fourth annual report.