LA Cops Banned from Petty Traffic Stops

The NY Post reports:

Los Angeles City Council just threw its full weight behind a crack down on LAPD’s pretextual stops.

In a unanimous 14-0 vote, lawmakers moved to rein in the traffic stops, a routine tool officers have long used to pull drivers over for minor violations and probe for bigger crimes. ...

“This is a big down payment,” he said, signaling more changes ahead. The vote caps six years of City Hall buildup that began in the wake of the George Floyd protests.

Cops would stop you for a broken tail light, and then discover evidence of more serious crimes.

Apparently this disproportionately affected Black and Brown drivers.

The NY Times reports

What Are 'Teen Takeovers' and Why Are Police Struggling to Stop Them?

Across the country, police and city officials are trying to crack down on sometimes violent youth gatherings, but the teens themselves say they need some way to socialize and blow off steam ...

“There was a lot of dog whistling there about the fact that these are Black kids who are gathering together in these large groups, and we should be afraid of them,” Mr. Steinberg said.

Black and Latino youth gatherings are more likely to be assumed as criminal, said Kristin Henning, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in juvenile justice. White children in skate parks in the 1980s and 1990s did not generate nearly the same level of surveillance and arrests as Black gatherings, she said.

Why would Black/Latino youth gangs get more scrutiny that Whites in skate parks? No one wants to say the obvious.