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https://mynorthwest.com/3311905/rantz-equity-policy-seattle-police-traffic-stops-car-theft/

Rantz: New equity policy bars Seattle Police from some traffic stops,
opens door to more car theft

Jan 14, 2022, 5:34 PM
seattle police, traffic stops...
Seattle police in South Park. (KIRO 7 TV, Brian Doerflinger )
BY JASON RANTZ
The Jason Rantz Show, 3pm-6pm on KTTH

Seattle Police Department’s interim-chief Adrian Diaz announced sweeping
new policies that ban many non-criminal traffic stops. The move is
framed around equity concerns, with the chief arguing that because not
everyone can afford to pay the traffic violation fines, they must not be
enforced. But all this does is make it easier for car thieves to
continue to prey on Seattleites.

Under the new policies, SPD will no longer treat several violations as
the primary reason to engage in a traffic stop. They include expired or
missing registration, which is sometimes a clue that a car is stolen.

The move comes months after the Seattle Inspector General claimed police
pose a risk to Black drivers they pull over. In fact, the original
proposal would have banned all traffic stops but the police union
successfully pushed back.

Still, it’s the latest blow to officer morale and a boon to car thieves
who are already running rampant throughout the city.

Equity concerns behind the new policy
Diaz made the announcement in a Friday afternoon email to staff.
According to the memo, officers may not pull motorists over for the
following violations:

Expired or missing vehicle registration (Title: License and plates
required)- SMC 11.22.070

Issues with the display of registration plates (Title: Vehicle license
plates displayed) – SMC 11.22.080

Technical violations of SMC 11.84.140, such as items hanging from the
rear-view mirror and cracks in the windshield. Actual visual
obstruction, such as snow, fog, non-transparent, material, or shattered
windshields, will be enforced – (Title: Windshield obstruction) – SMC
11.84.140

Bicycle helmet violations (KCHC 9.10)

Seattle Inspector General Lisa Judge originally proposed a total ban on
traffic stops in a May 2021 memo.

“If we stopped conducting traffic stops for all traffic violations in
the city, doing so would have catastrophic impacts to our community’s
public safety interests,” Seattle Police Officers Guild president Mike
Solan told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “Moreover, if you were to
compare today’s decision to what Inspector Judge first publicly said in
May, today’s decision is a reasonable approach. Having said this, this
decision will still have negative impacts to our community’s public
safety interests and still supports the preposterous notion that police
still engage in bias policing with traffic stops.”

It could have been worse — but it may soon be
A source with close knowledge of the negotiations around these policies
says the Seattle Police Officers Guild pushed back forcibly, arguing it
would be a lawless free-for-all.

In the end, SPOG was successful in stopping Judge’s most extreme policy
goal from moving forward. Still, there is a belief this may only be a
short-term win with Judge allowing the less-extreme policy to move
forward before reintroducing a total ban.

Chief Diaz is choosing to frame the move around equity concerns, turning
a public safety issue into one about social justice.

“We know there are concerns about if these violations disproportionately
fall on those who are unable to meet financial demands,” Diaz writes.

His reasoning makes no sense. It hides what the move is truly about.

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The illogical argument
By Diaz’s logic, of course, most laws would soon be deemed
unenforceable. He’s arguing that if someone cannot afford to pay a fine
for breaking the law, the law should not be enforced.

But in the same memo, Diaz says these violations “can still be enforced,
if there was another primary violation.”

In other words, a motorist can’t afford one non-criminal traffic fine
when no other primary violation occurs. But they can and should be
forced to pay it when a different primary violation is noticed?

If the logic is strained, it’s because it is. Though there is an
activist belief that low-income lawbreakers shouldn’t have to pay fines,
the impetus for this move is the dangerous and shameful belief that cops
are racist and will hurt Black motorists.

Policy change comes from anti-police viewpoint
These policies came from a working group convened by Seattle Inspector
General Lisa Judge, at the behest of Diaz. Judge is a progressive
activist who doesn’t trust police officers.

In May 2021, Judge called on Diaz to end all low-level traffic stops
because they are, she argues, especially dangerous for Black motorists.

“Without drilling down to underlying issues and root causes, police and
community are destined to continue the same cycle of traffic stops gone
wrong,” Judge wrote. “To that end, the issue of what and how conduct
should be policed is perhaps as important as other root causes, such as
institutional racism and subconscious bias. For safety of both officers
and the public and for racial fairness, SPD should seek to eliminate
routine traffic stops for civil and non-dangerous violations.”

While Judge implied these deadly traffic problems are frequent, she
could only cite one local example. But it involved a suspect who fled
from police, and then went for a gun before officers shot and killed
him. Officers were cleared of wrongdoing by the city watchdog group.

“SPOG pushed back against this as the ultimate purveyor of what
constitutional policing looks like is the Department of Justice. In
fact, DOJ told our community that the Seattle Police Department has met
all accountability benchmarks of reform and one of those important
benchmarks was bias policing,” SPOG President Mike Solan told the Jason
Rantz Show on KTTH. “How can Inspector Judge say that we, as Seattle
police officers, are still conducting disproportional traffic
enforcement against persons of color? If we were doing so, then wouldn’t
the DOJ intervene? What an incredible insult.”

This policy emboldens criminals
This new policy is dangerous and will make it easier for criminals to
operate. Of particular concern to officers? Car thieves.

“That’s exactly what our main concern is. Auto theft is off the rails
and they switch plates all the time or take them off and make fake
temporary tags,” one officer tells the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.

A second officer reached out to the Jason Rantz Show with concerns, too.

“Right off the top of my head, anybody who has kidnapped a child and
takes their license plates off… or they have a matching vehicle for a
bank robbery and they’ve taken the license plates off… we’re not going
to be able to stop them,” the officer said. “And the criminals already
take the license plates off of stolen cars to go commit other crimes
like armed robberies and carjackings.”

What’s worse, thanks to statewide police reform bills, police can only
detain suspects with probable cause. The previous standard was
reasonable suspicion. For example, if an officer suspects a car is
stolen due to missing registration, a suspicious-looking driver, and
even a bullet hole in a windshield, they couldn’t detain the motorist
because it wouldn’t meet probable cause.

“I can’t tell you how many gangsters have cars that were shot up three
weeks ago, but has nothing to do with a current crime,” a third officer
noted, expressing concerns that reasonable suspicion can no longer be
used for a traffic stop.

More is expected to come
Since this new policy comes from Judge’s recommendations, morale will
take another hit within the SPD, one officer tells me. Her
recommendations stem from a belief they’re too racist to police safely.
And Diaz went along with it.

The chief’s position may earn him some points with new Mayor Bruce
Harrell, but it is hurting his standing with officers who view this as
another attack on their jobs. The SPD is already losing historic numbers
of officers.

“Police officers are fantastic human beings that want to serve… we are
willing to give our life in that service,” SPOG president Solan noted.
“Negative contacts with members in our community can almost be
eradicated if people would comply with a police officer’s lawful
detention… We are professional servants who support full accountability
and we are proud to work for the most progressive and accountable police
department in the nation. Removing traffic enforcement from police is
the wrong path for our community’s public safety interests as Seattle is
worth saving.”

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