Left to right: Catherine O’Connor, Michelle White, Jim Nasella, Maddie Gavel-Briggs, Paul McDermott, Xilian Stammer, and Kris Ockershauser at the Pasadena Black History Parade on February 18
The 41st Annual Pasadena Black History Parade was held on Saturday, February 18, and for the tenth year the Pasadena-Foothill Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California participated, and we marched in the parade representing both ACLU and LWV-PA. The weather was good, the bands were bursting with kids playing drums and horns, and shiny convertibles carrying officials representing Black organizations cruised down Fair Oaks. All along its route, the parade was met with calls and applause from the crowd.
Seven of us from ACLU spread out behind our banner, with four of us walking the sidelines to distribute flyers to people watching the parade. The flyer—from ACLU, LWV-PA, and NAACP Pasadena—asked attendees to call Pasadena Mayor Gordo, Councilmember Justin Jones, and City Manager Miguel Márquez to encourage them to “stop cops from making deadly traffic stops!” Many people thanked us for the flyers and welcomed the opportunity to do something about numerous petty traffic stops targeting Black men—stops that all too often can turn deadly.
Our handout targeted government leaders at City Hall. Our request: Get our police officers to comply with California’s historic use-of-force reforms, recent state laws that now require use of de-escalation techniques, when feasible, prior to the use of deadly force. To date, the Pasadena Police Department policy merely suggests that an officer “should consider” the use of de-escalation, as recommended by the powerful Police Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), a state lobbying group that advocates for law enforcement.
The ACLU of California and the League of Women Voters of California were major proponents of the use-of-force reforms enacted in AB 392 and SB 230 (both signed into law in 2019). ACLU has waged legislative battles with PORAC to address the high number of persons killed by police in California, and the Pasadena Area League is currently engaging Pasadena civic leaders to have Pasadena police officers trained in the legislative language of de-escalation and to adopt a policy that requires de-escalation to be used, if safe, before the use of deadly force or infliction of great bodily injury.
Additional groups that have joined the call for compliance with the reforms include the Pasadena NAACP, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Greater Pasadena, Clergy Community Coalition Pastors Kerwin Manning and Mayra Macedo-Nolan, and Pasadenans Organizing for Progress (POP). Pasadena’s Community Police Oversight Commission (CPOC) also wishes to join in the push for this change. Several other California cities have adopted policies and practices requiring the use of de-escalation, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, San Francisco, Pomona, Stockton, Berkeley, and Elk Grove.
A 2022 study by Catalyst California and ACLU SoCal found that, instead of addressing community concerns about serious crime, sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties spend nearly nine out of every ten hours on stops initiated by officers rather than responding to calls for help. Among those officer-initiated stops, approximately 80 percent are for traffic violations.
Currently in the state legislature, amendments to Senate Bill 50 introduced by State Senator Steven Bradford (SD 50) would limit law enforcement’s ability to use minor, non-safety-related traffic infractions to conduct what are often racially biased, pretextual stops. SB 50 would also provide technical help to enable California cities and counties to explore non-law-enforcement approaches to traffic safety.
—Kris Ockershauser, Chair, Policing Practices Subcommittee
*PPIC research shows that Black drivers are more likely to be subject to intrusive traffic stops even when an officer does not discover contraband or issue a ticket or warning. Source: PPIC/Police Use of Force and Racial Disparities during Traffic Stops, Public Policy Institute of California (ppic.org) February 2, 2023, Blog Post. Incidents involving traffic stops by PPD have been documented by the Los Angeles Times, Pasadena Now, and LAist, among other sources.
