Chronicle Endorses Prop 47-ization of Traffic Enforcement in SF

Chron’s Neilson cites study based on stops of elementary school children drivers

(Pretext stops are justified) “because the community thinks we are racists.”

   Catherine McGuire, Executive Director SFPD Strategic Management Division addressing the July SFPD Advanced Officer training.

The San Francisco Police Commission, with the approval of SFPD Chief Bill Scott, is planning to vote to reduce SFPD officers’ abilities to conduct traffic stops on vehicles.  As an example, assume an officer sees a driver toss a bag containing the remains of a McDonald’s meal onto the street.  Most people believe that the driver has no concern for others and a police officer should cite or admonish the driver as part of our community’s socialization process.  From a law enforcement perspective, the odds favor that a person who blatantly ignored a small law like littering, is probably similarly disregarding laws pertaining to violence.  Progressives claim that any traffic enforcement on the litterer would be a “pretext traffic stop” and the officer’s intention really is “based on the officer’s hunch that would not amount to reasonable suspicion or probable cause (pg. 13). [1]

The San Francisco Police Commission and Chief Scott believe that people of color are cited more frequently for tossing McDonald’s bags, and therefore they are proposing a Prop 47-ization of the vehicle code.  Under the proposal, SFPD officers will no longer be allowed to issue citations for littering—or, in other words, littering will become legal.  There will be no limit to the volume of litter, so our residents will be able to cancel our Recology bills and also dump garbage in the streets.

The Police Commission’s proposed revamp of SFPD General Order 9.01, will also effectively allow driving: without a license plate, without current registration or even displaying a registration tab, without two brake lights, without two headlights, and we will now be able to bicycle on the sidewalk.

Proposed SFPD General Order 9.01.01 specifically concludes: “These (pretext) stops—are disproportionately carried out against people of color” without citing a study. This codified General Order philosophy was echoed in the Chronicle’s recent article Data on racial profiling in California shows the problem is only getting worse.  But where are the statistics that support the Chronicle’s and the Police Commission’s conclusions?

Faulty Data Collection:

With a self-fulfilling name, the California Racial Identity Profiling Advisory Board (RIPA) was created in 2016 to eliminate racial and identity profiling and improve diversity.”  This group self-proclaims to be a diverse group of the public, law enforcement and educators.” It is RIPA’s 279 page RIPA 2022 Annual Report that serves as the source for the bulk of the Chronicle’s article.

Two things from the Chronicle’s history are of interest:

1)    The coauthor of this Chronicle piece was Susie Neilson, who authored the preposterous article that only 6 shoplifting incidents occur daily in San Francisco.  Without questioning the credibility of statistics, Neilson has a proven track record of marrying statistics that support the Chronicle’s progressive narrative, and

2)    The Chronicle has a reputation for timing the release of studies to upcoming votes.  In their April 16, 2019 “signature” article, the newspaper mislead the public that because juvenile arrests were declining, therefore juvenile crime was dropping. Actually, juvenile crime in San Francisco had increased, but only a month later, the Board of Supervisors still used to the Chronicle article as justification for their 10-1 vote to close Juvenile Hall.

Is the timing of the Chronicle’s article, and their failure to delve into the integrity of RIPA’s statistics, evidence the newspaper’s is acting as the progressive mouthpiece for the SF Police Commission?

The elementary school and toddler crime wave.

On page 45 of the RIPA report, is the California traffic stop data by age group.  Note the first bar in each graph showing the frequency of traffic stops on children under 10 years of age.

In preparation for this article, I spoke to police officers with a combined 200 years of experience.  Not one officer had made a traffic stop on a person under 10 years of age.  Yet, per the RIPA graph, a five-year-old is three times as likely to be required to sign a citation for driving, then a 10-year-old.  Appendix A.10 of the study lists 34% of children under 10 years of age gave consent to be searched physically.  A 9-year-old cannot legally give consent, which is just another indication of the ludicrousness of the RIPA report.

The RIPA recognized the absurdity of their statistics in footnote 77:

The data shows an unexpected number of reported traffic violations for people too young to hold a provisional permit or driver’s license. This could partially be explained by cases where officers (1) incorrectly recorded the age of the stopped individuals, (2) recorded data for passengers in the vehicles they stop, or (3) recorded violations of bicycle or motorized scooter law, which are considered valid reportable traffic violations.

The above graph flushes out two significant problems that affect the rest of the RIPA study:

1)    while the study recognized that toddlers and elementary school children represent an “unexpected” amount of traffic stops, RIPA allowed the data to remain, without seeking clarity. Why, because it supported their narrative? and

2)    the study intentionally does not list the totals for each age group, which removes context.  Were 1 million children stopped for driving or 100?  The fact that 0 through 9 years of age was not merged with 10 to 14 years of age, means that there is a material number of elementary school children being pulled over by law enforcement.

The most logical explanation for this anomalistic statistic is that when a police officer pulls over a father and his three children, the officer records 4 people being stopped.  Many officers in California, fearful of being charged for inaccuracies by zealous police oversight boards, include all passengers in a vehicle as “having been stopped.”  So, if toddlers are included as being the subject of traffic stops, how many grandmothers who were merely passengers are also listed? This really means that the entire RIPA’s data is inflated and lacks validity.

Over 1 million Black Californians disappeared between page 177 and page 178

The 2022 annual RIPA report uses few statistics.  Their data is almost exclusively presented in terms of percentages, which hides context from the reader. 

On page 177, RIPA published the following chart on the demographics of traffic stops in California that were triggered by citizens’ call to emergency 9-1-1 line, compared to the demographic compositions of the state:

On page 178, RIPA published the following chart on the demographics of traffic stops in California that were made by law enforcement officers, compared to the demographic compositions of the state:

There are several problems with these two graphs:

1)    The denominators in both bar graphs are verbatim: “weighted racial/ethnic distribution of individuals of residents in the jurisdictions where officers made these stops.”  So, why do Blacks makeup 9% of the California’s population (pg. 177) when they are compared to 9-1-1 caller, but only compose 6% of California’s population (pg. 178) when police pull them over?   How did 33% of the Black population disappear?  That’s over a million people.[4]  Was the reduction in the Black population made to enlarge the disparity and demonize law enforcement?

2)    The graphs fail to compare how many traffic stops were made pursuant to 9-1-1 calls versus police officers’ self-initiated stops.  Were calls to 9-1-1 responsible for 95% of traffic stops or 5%?  From 2019 to 2020, California vehicle stops declined 26.4% from 3,995,686 to 2,937662.  Has decreased police traffic enforcement caused a corresponding increase in 9-1-1 calls?  Why is RIPA withholding these numbers?

Callers to 9-1-1 do not call to report a driver failed to use his turn signal.  The majority of their calls relate to an associated crime.  Thus, from RIPA’s two charts, 27% of 9-1-1 callers reported Blacks had committed a crime, while Blacks only compose 16% of police traffic stops made independent of 9-1-1 calls.  That means law enforcement is pulling over Blacks at a 40% lower rate than they are reported as suspects in crimes by citizens.  Doesn’t that make the 9-1-1- callers the racists?

Traffic stop data does not factor in greater personnel assigned to higher crime areas:

In San Francisco, each neighborhood, or police district, is composed of neighborhoods with unique socioeconomic, ethnic, and crime characteristics.

The homicide rates and violent crimes totals are different in each district.  For instance, the following is the 2020 homicide rates for the Bayview, Tenderloin, and Richmond Districts were as follows:

The 2020 violent crime totals for the same districts were as follows:

To address the greater crimes in different police districts, SFPD shifts their defense to the side of the field where the ball is going.   On the eve of this article, July 8, 2022, the following is the sergeant and patrol staffing for the same police districts:

How can the public expect SFPD to double their personnel in the higher-crime areas and not expect a doubling of traffic enforcement?   It places California law enforcement in a no-win position with progressives and the Chronicle: Double the staffing in the higher crime areas and it allows the progressives to claim racism. Or: staff each district equally and allow higher crime areas to be less attended to.

An absence of statistical objectivity

When Catherine McGuire, made her comments at the SFPD advanced officers training, officers voiced resentment over her demoralizing claims the community viewed them as racists.  It is one thing to say progressives and the Chronicle are anti-police, it is another matter to say the community views SFPD that way.  Via email, I asked McGuire to provide me with her source, or a survey, that supports her racism accusations against SFPD—she did not respond.

McGuire seems to maintain the same contagious, statistically challenged, views as the Chronicle’s echo chamber.  The Chronicle’s Susie Neilson is a “data reporter,” but has a statistically absent master’s degree in journalism.  Similarly, McGuire majored in music theory as an undergraduate and obtained a master’s in public policy.  Apparently without taking a course in accounting, she was made the civilian chief financial officer of SFPD.  Meanwhile, four SFPD officers, who had passed the CPA exam, patrolled the streets at approximately 2/3rds her salary.  McGuire was recently promoted to Executive Director SFPD Strategic Management at a quarter million dollars salary per year.  Yet, without having spent a minute on the streets as a police officer, SFPD assigned McGuire to lecture veteran officers about her unsupported opinions.  Why is it that people with connections and a propensity not to challenge their bosses’ thinking, are the ones that are provided with the largest microphones?

We were conned with Prop. 47, the Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act.  We were hoodwinked with Governor Newsom’s Prop. 19 the Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act.  Don’t drink the Chronicle’s or high-ranking SFPD persons’ Kool-Aid on incredulous statistics that demonize law enforcement and curtail traffic enforcement. 

Note: A week after this article raised serious questions about the data the Chronicle used to opine SFPD and California law enforcement officers profile during traffic stops, the editors continue to link Neilson’s article as accurate.

---

1. Actually, “probable cause” exists that the driver broke the law.  Also defined as probable cause by SFPD Department General Order 9.01.02 A.

2. Here is the Woke-intensive backgrounds of the board: Three police officers, plus UC Berkley Professor of Public Policy, Director of Human Rights, Mayoral candidate for Chula Vista, Director of Equality Alliance, Founder of Justice for Murdered Children, Senior Pastor, Professor of Mathematics Loyola Marymount University, CHP Police commissioner, ACLU, Asian American Pacific Islander for Civic Empowerment, Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Alameda Public Defender

3. The Chronicle failed to even mention the impact of the new 2016 California law that prevented police from questioning juvenile individuals.

4. Three percentage points of California’s 3.9 million population equals 1,00,000+.

---