Tens of thousands of people are stopped and searched by D.C. police each year without a warrant, according to a new report released Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.
As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.
“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren't doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.
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According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.
Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.
“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we're actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn't outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they're being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.
Investigations
Investigations by the News4 I-Team
The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.'s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.
According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It's pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.
In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.
“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.
“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest," a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.
It's unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.
Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:
"The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:
- The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
- The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
- Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
- MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
- Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.[1]
- Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.
The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.
[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system."
The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.
“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”
Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.
