A new statistic has revealed that from 2016 until 2019, only 49 of nearly 3,500 complaints regarding racial profiling in California were acted on. This means that 98% of claims were rejected, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The piece shared that Chris Martin, the director of legal services for the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, was allegedly racially profiled while driving in February 2020. The 32-year-old attorney drove past what he described as a “police perimeter” and asked police if he could go through, but officers asked him to exit his car instead. Martin says he was immediately frisked and handcuffed by police as they were allegedly looking for a shooting suspect with the vague description of a “Black man in dark clothing.”
Since the officers would not disclose additional information about the stop, frisk or arrest, Martin concluded that he was being profiled simply because he was Black.
Martin filed a formal complaint against the officers, alleging that implicit bias initiated the stop. The piece revealed that even though he moved forward with a complaint, he already knew how th internal investigation into the officers’ treatment of him would pan out. “I still have to file the complaint, even though I know that it’s highly likely to be futile, at least as far as whether or not the department is going to hold itself accountable,” Martin says.
On December 14, Los Angeles Times crime reporter James Queally tweeted, “Of the 250 law enforcement agencies that received at least one racial profiling complaint, 92% upheld zero, including the California Highway Patrol, Oakland PD, San Bernardino & San Diego Sheriffs.”
Not much has changed in the state, as an analysis done by the Times from 2008-2017 found similar results. The report also says that California “upheld only 8% of roughly 200,000 allegations of wrongdoing.”
No spokesperson from the Los Angeles Police Department agreed to to make a statement to the newspaper about the February incident.