(The Center Square) – The San Diego Commission on Police Practices has recommended the San Diego Police Department stop motorists only in certain situations.
CPP’s proposal prohibits stops based solely on minor equipment or administrative violations. The commission’s plan is to limit stops to those based on observed conduct or evidence-based reasons.
Minor equipment or administrative violations include lighting issues, window and view obstructions, body/exhaust modifications, and registration.
SDPD acknowledged the situation after being contacted by The Center Square.
“The San Diego Police Department has received Commission on Police Practices’ recommendations and will be carefully reviewing them,” Sgt. Saum Poorsaleh, the department’s public information officer, told The Center Square via email. “We will continue working closely with the CPP and engaging in discussions throughout this 60-day review process.”
CPP, which was created by voters in 2020 under Measure B, said it wants to ensure equal treatment, eliminate undue pressure on specific communities, and build public trust.
Still, Steve Smith at Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute sees all this as part of a broader trend toward using police oversight as a backdoor de-policing strategy.
“There is an important difference between holding officers accountable for unlawful or improper conduct and telling officers not to engage in otherwise lawful police activity,” Smith said in an email to The Center Square. “San Diego’s commission is moving towards the latter by recommending restrictions on proactive stops because of disparities in who is stopped.”
Smith added that Racial and Identity Profiling Act data can identify disparities, but a disparity by itself does not explain why it exists.
“Police activity is not evenly distributed because crime and calls for service are not evenly distributed,” Smith continued. “The commission’s own earlier review found that about two-thirds of the stops it examined were part of focused proactive-enforcement strategies, including operations intended to take illegal guns and contraband off the streets.”
According to Smith, “California learned the risks of de-policing the hard way after George Floyd” in 2020.
California recorded 1,739 homicides in 2018. During the violence surge that followed Floyd’s death, homicides reached 2,361 in 2021.
From 2020 through 2024, Smith said, California recorded thousands more homicide deaths than it would have if the 2018 level had simply continued.
“Racial disparities also run in both directions,” said Smith, PRI’s senior fellow in urban studies. “Black Californians are disproportionately represented in criminal-justice contacts and incarceration, but they are also disproportionately represented among the victims of violent crime. An equity analysis that measures the first disparity while ignoring the second gives us only half the picture.”
The impact on Black Californians was particularly severe, said Smith.
“There were 433 Black homicide victims in 2018,” he explained. “That rose to 690 in 2021. By 2025 it had fallen to 372 – a 46% decline from the 2021 peak.”
That decline did not happen by accident, Smith argued, pointing to better police work, improved community cooperation and modern technology.
“Better police work, improved community cooperation and rapidly improving technology, from body cameras and license-plate readers to DNA and other investigative tools, have made it easier to identify violent offenders, solve crimes and get dangerous people off the street,” Smith said. “That remarkable improvement in Black public safety should be part of any discussion about reducing proactive policing.”
While acknowledging that traffic stops alone did not cause the rise or fall in homicides, Smith cautioned local leadership against acting without looking at the bigger picture.
“Before restricting a lawful crime suppression tool, San Diego’s political and public safety leaders should determine what those stops accomplish and what effect eliminating them could have on the communities most affected by violent crime,” Smith said. “Equity cannot be measured only by who encounters the police. It also has to measure who is protected by them.”
