Anatomy of a Traffic Stop: Driving While Black in San Leandro

I've been meaning to come back to this video for quite a while. The incident in question happened July 18, 2019. The victim was a Black woman. The perpetrator was a White San Leandro police officer.

The video itself is only about 14 to 16 minutes, but the sequence of events can be summarized as follows:

The cell phone recording begins with a Black woman in her car being confronted by a White police officer for an alleged traffic infraction. The officer stated the woman was pulled over for not having a front license plate. The woman informed the officer that she actually does have a front license plate. The officer reasserted that there is not front license plate, requested the woman's identification, and attempted to get her to exit the car in order to conduct a search. The woman did provide her identification but did not consent to a search of her vehicle as the probable cause for the stop was false because she did indeed have front license plates.

The officer became argumentative and combative, which resulted in the woman responding that she feared for herself and her passenger in the car. The officer continued to intimidate the woman and attempted to look into the car beyond anything in plain view without her consent. The woman requested to speak with a supervisor and needed to ask that the officer turn on his body camera as it appeared to be turned off.

Eventually a supervisor arrives on scene and goes to the front of the woman's vehicle where the supervisor confirms that the vehicle does indeed have a front license plate! The officer goes to inspect the front of the vehicle and it becomes evident that he failed to properly look. The front license plate on quality vintage cars such as the woman's are not affixed in the center, but more to the right as shown in the below example.

The officer admitted he made a mistake and apologized. However, when the woman began to assert her outrage with how the situation was handled and attempted to explain with how dangerous this way of handling a simple traffic stop is, the officer became defensive. He proceeded to lecture the woman that when people act like she did in this incident it makes the police believe that those individuals are hiding something or that they might try and hurt the police officer(s).

The woman retorted how that is an unacceptable mentality and insufficient reasoning for the emotional trauma, the time wasted, and the dangerous behavior exhibited by the officer. Indeed, multiple times throughout the incident the woman explains what is happening, why it's wrong, and what this means about the state of policing in our community.

The video concludes with the officer's supervisor stating that the woman "won," but also regretting how he perceived she handled the situation and asking what else does she want from them. The woman realizes that neither she nor her passenger will receive any recompense or redress for this incident. She states that she is okay to drive and ends the recording.

Now, let's be clear on what happened here: this woman committed no crime, but the mere fact of asserting her rights made her a suspect that the police officer thought was hiding something and/or would try to hurt him... That's a siege mentality of someone untrained in handling conflicts or using deescalation tactics. That's the mentality of someone unfit to be a police officer. Why? Because they are unable to protect and serve.

The attitude of the police supervisor is also telling in that they see this as a "game" to be "won" rather than the life or death interaction it actually is for Black people. Notably, the supervisor asked what else could she want from them besides an apology? Well, to start with would be some compensation for the intimidation, attempting to conduct an unlawful search, unnecessarily frightening her and her passenger, as well as for the time they were detained. After that, we could talk about the larger issue of reparations, but I suspect that's a conversation we don't have the range for in our city just yet.

Keep in mind, we've seen the evidence of how "driving while Black" so often leads to police brutality. You can find information on this issue here, here, and here. We've seen that evidence in the police brutality that was inflicted against Emerald Black on June 7, 2019, a little over a month earlier. In fact, we're painfully aware of just how pervasive racism has been in San Leandro.

Meanwhile, if our city's police officers can't even handle simple traffic stops, what are our expectations about their ability to handle more serious matters? If our police officers will misleadingly portray what's happening even in real time, how trustworthy can we hold them after the fact? If this is "winning" according to SLPD in their interactions with BIPOC in our city, then we need much more than a change in culture or chief of police.

We need to reimagine public safety in a way that dismantles the systems which cause even good cops to grievously harm people, alongside reinvesting in critical community and social services that actually reduce crime. We could start by removing ticketing for traffic infractions from police authority, similar to neighboring Berkeley.

Only then can we begin to hope that incidents like become less frequent instead of the common occurrence they still are in San Leandro.

Take note and take care.