Portland police change traffic-stop policy, in effort to address racial inequities


The Portland Police Bureau is shifting its traffic enforcement policy to focus primarily on moving violations that pose an immediate danger to public safety, according to Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell.

That change is designed to reduce racial disparities in who gets policed.
According to 2019 police bureau data, of the 33,035 vehicle stops Portland police made that year, 18% were for Black drivers and 65% were for white drivers. Meanwhile, white people make up 75.1% of the population, while Black people make up 5.8%.

The discrepancy is even greater for non-moving violation stops, a category for which, the report says, officers have more room for discretionary judgement. Black people accounted for 22.6% of those stops compared to 62% for white people.
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/06/...l-disparities/