Could Detroit end minor traffic stops? Michigan cities offer roadmap

• A number of Michigan jurisdictions, together with Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor, have already applied comparable insurance policies to cut back racial profiling.
• Regulation enforcement teams have expressed issues, arguing that minor stops are a great tool for stopping crime and guaranteeing highway security.

Detroit police oversight board members hoping to restrict minor visitors stops after a sequence of police shootings that began with points together with alleged license plate and tinted window violations can look to the experiences of at the least three Michigan jurisdictions which have restricted such stops lately.

“Driving equality”-style ordinances and insurance policies in Washtenaw County, Ann Arbor and East Lansing have aimed to forestall racial profiling and scale back citizen contacts with police by barring some stops for low-level gear violations and expired registration stickers.

The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Workplace has seen a 70% discount in such stops since implementing restrictions in January, a part of a 50% decline in total visitors stops, in keeping with data offered by Sheriff Alyshia Dyer evaluating the primary 10 months of this 12 months to the identical interval in 2024. Police makes use of of pressure within the county, in the meantime, dropped 13% and aggravated assaults involving officers dropped 54% as crime continued a post-pandemic decline noticed all through the nation, she mentioned.

In Ann Arbor – which applied restrictions in July 2023 – police makes use of of pressure have ticked up barely, from 150 incidents in 2022 to 162 incidents in 2024, amid a rise in requires service, in keeping with information offered by that metropolis’s police division. Ann Arbor officers have stopped extra individuals on the roads total, for different offenses, within the first two years of the ban, according to MLive reporting.

Ann Arbor Metropolis Council unanimously handed town’s driving equality ordinance on the anniversary of the 2016 deadly police taking pictures of Philando Castile in Minnesota, a Black driver and authorized gun holder initially pulled over for what his spouse mentioned was a busted tail mild. Nationwide, at the least 32 states, cities and regulation enforcement companies have comparable restrictions on visitors stops for minor points that do not need a transparent influence on public security, together with Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, in keeping with the advocacy group the Vera Institute of Justice.

“Police use of pressure is the sixth leading cause of death for young Black men … we all know what can occur,” mentioned Ann Arbor Councilmember Cynthia Harrison, who spearheaded the ordinance. However she acknowledged the ordinance has not been a panacea, saying police “tradition takes a very long time to shift.” 

Members of Detroit’s police oversight board have mentioned they’re going to weigh comparable modifications within the wake of two October police shootings that stemmed from gear violation-related stops that some board members mentioned appeared rooted in racial profiling.

On Oct. 21, Detroit Gang Intelligence officers aiding with elevated visitors enforcement in a high-accident space made a U-turn to comply with and examine a Chevy Malibu, in keeping with Police Chief Todd Bettison and a division briefing that offered no clarification for why the automobile was adopted. The officers mentioned they then noticed the motive force make an improper proper flip with an obscured license plate earlier than they stopped the automobile in a McDonald’s Drive-Via. Throughout a subsequent seek for weapons, police mentioned an 18-year-old man within the backseat grew to become resistant, fled on foot and was chased and shot after officers mentioned he pulled a gun.

The shootings are amongst at the least 9 by Detroit officers prior to now decade that originated with visitors stops, together with for cracked tail lights and excessive beams, in keeping with ongoing Detroit Free Press reporting on police shootings within the metropolis. Practically all concerned Black males underneath age 33.

“It’s my total aim to see an finish to a few of these practices within the metropolis of Detroit,” Detroit Police Commissioner Darryl Woods advised the Free Press in early December, referencing what he known as pretext stops for minor violations whose true purpose is to seek out crimes.

Woods declined to elaborate on the standing of his effort, saying that he’s now a public security advisor on mayor-elect Mary Sheffield’s transition group and “I don’t wish to get forward of the mayor-elect.”

A consultant for Sheffield’s transition group didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Chief Bettison didn’t reply to a Free Press interview request to debate the potential for bringing such restrictions to Detroit. 

Beforehand, he advised the Free Press in a press release, “I might by no means take away our officer’s (sic) discretion with regards to policing. I’m not conscious of any officers who’re profiling with regards to visitors stops.”

Curbing minor stops improves security, companies say

Law enforcement officials have lengthy leveraged minor vehicular infractions to disguise racial profiling and as a pretext to fish for potential criminality, mentioned Mark Fancher, a racial-justice challenge lawyer with the ACLU of Michigan.

In 2024, a third-party report commissioned by Michigan State Police to assist settle an ACLU lawsuit discovered “vital” racial disparities within the company’s visitors stops, plus a apply of “going past the cease” searching for crimes and contraband, together with based mostly on indicators as benign as driving a rental automobile or slamming on brakes.

In 2023, an Eastern Michigan University study of Ann Arbor discovered that non-white drivers – significantly Black and multiracial males – had been way more often stopped and searched than white drivers, usually for minor gear violations like loud exhaust or tinted home windows.

In Detroit, a extra violent metropolis the place hundreds of weapons are recovered annually, minor stops that flip up weapons can shortly spiral and finish in shootings.

However many regulation enforcement officers argue gear violation stops are a great tool for stopping crime and automobile accidents. 

“A variety of the dangerous guys drive with the mistaken plates, quite a lot of the dangerous guys drive with the mistaken driver’s license, there may be quite a lot of contraband in automobiles which are like that,” mentioned James Tignanelli, president of the Police Officers Affiliation of Michigan, which opposed Ann Arbor’s ban. “In all probability extra the explanation for (violence) occurring (is) as a result of it appears to be an appropriate apply to assault a police officer.”

“These are legal guidelines as a result of they had been discovered to be a strategy to hold motorists secure on our roadways,” mentioned Ron Wiles, govt director of the Michigan Affiliation of Chiefs of Police. “When it is darkish and you’ve got tinted home windows, you’ve gotten decreased visibility … similar factor for dangling ornaments from a rearview mirror.”

In East Lansing, police spokesman Commander Adrian Ojerio advised the Free Press that minor stops can at instances additionally thwart main crimes, as when he mentioned a division officer arrested a kidnapping suspect after a cease for tinted home windows in 2006.

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A number of jurisdictions which have applied minor cease bans have reported declines in crime and accident charges.

In Philadelphia – a metropolis that, like Detroit, notched over 200 homicides final 12 months – total crime and violent crime have dropped considerably for the reason that ban’s 2022 implementation, in step with crime declines in different main U.S. cities, mentioned a spokesman for Philadelphia Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who spearheaded the ban. Lowering minor stops for gear violations has resulted in officers discovering extra contraband like weapons, which he described as a public security win. (Philadelphia police use of pressure information was not instantly obtainable.)

“Some individuals see this proposal as purely a race-relations invoice, however we reject that,” mentioned Thomas spokesman Benjamin Wilcox. “A much bigger a part of it’s truly the information element, and what we discovered is that when Black individuals had been stopped for minor visitors infractions, they did not truly get stopped with drug paraphernalia and weapons or something. And since police time has been reallocated, they’re truly discovering extra contraband.”

In Washtenaw County, Sheriff Dyer reported an 18% discount in total crime, a 43% discount in deadly accidents and a 3% discount in total non-fatal crashes, when evaluating the primary ten months of this 12 months’s restrictions to the identical interval final 12 months. Ann Arbor reported a slight spike in accidents – from 2,122 in 2022 to 2,247 in 2024 – however a police spokesman famous the speed of accidents relative to automobiles on the roads had doubtless decreased, because the 2022 complete coincided with the pandemic.

Deadly and critical injury-causing accidents within the metropolis rose from 23 in 2022 to 32 in 2024.

In a press release, Ann Arbor Police Chief Andre Anderson mentioned that since a Could replace to the minor stops coverage, “deadly and serious-injury crashes have decreased considerably, demonstrating that lowering low-level stops and sustaining robust security outcomes can coexist.” De-emphasizing minor stops has allowed officers to focus “on the behaviors almost certainly to trigger critical crashes reasonably than on low-level or pretext stops,” he mentioned.

East Lansing, whose ban went into impact in October 2024, in the meantime reported a decline in total automobile accidents from 1,172 to 1,058 when evaluating the primary full 12 months of the ban to the 12 months prior.

That metropolis’s council authorised the ordinance barring some minor stops following a advice from its police oversight board, which cited racial disparities in visitors stops and the potential for encounters between police and the general public to escalate, WILX-TV reported. The division’s then-police chief opposed the ban, the station reported.

Final week, that metropolis’s council peeled again a portion of the ordinance barring stops for loud exhaust, citing resident complaints about noise.

Racial disparities persist

The bans have had restricted influence on addressing racial disparities in some jurisdictions, with leaders saying they have to be intently monitored and contain a public data component that may assist information coverage changes to realize desired outcomes.

As Ann Arbor gear violation stops dropped by roughly three-fourths from 2023 to a bit over 300 stops this 12 months, a July MLive report discovered overall traffic stops rose in the first two years of the ordinance, as did the proportion of Black drivers pulled over. The president of the NAACP’s Ann Arbor chapter advised the outlet he was stopped earlier this 12 months throughout a one-mile drive of downtown and advised by police it was as a result of he’d been “hugging (the) line in an ungainly manner.”

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Harrison says the outcomes emphasize that intention shouldn’t be sufficient.

“It’s not about simply approving a coverage or ordinance, it’s the way you implement it,” mentioned Harrison. “That is coping with a tradition that also exists. Over-policing is an actual factor that has occurred to Black and brown individuals within the metropolis of Ann Arbor for many years.”

Harrison mentioned hiring a police chief who helps the rationale behind the ordinance has been essential. Anderson was named Ann Arbor chief in 2024, and beforehand served as interim police chief in Ferguson, Missouri, the place he was hired to help reform the majority-white force after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager. 

In Could, as town council ordinance barring 10 kinds of stops with exceptions in circumstances the place a officer moderately perceives a “danger of hurt to individual(s) or property” allowed many minor stops to proceed, Anderson applied an much more stringent division coverage. Ann Arbor police at the moment are solely permitted to cease drivers for double headlight outages, double tail mild outages, double brake mild outages, seat belt violations, and an obstructed windshield that obscures visibility.

Stops for gear violations have fallen to zero within the months since, Harrison mentioned, a change she believes has doubtless yielded extra advantages by averting doubtlessly traumatic encounters and restoring Black drivers’ religion the police will not pull over and doubtlessly search them for trivial causes.

Harrison’s ordinance served as a blueprint for East Lansing’s, and he or she says she hopes extra jurisdictions can be taught from Ann Arbor’s expertise. 

“The concept was to essentially sort of set an instance for what different areas and jurisdictions must be doing,” she mentioned, saying she hopes sometime for state-level laws like that the Vera Institute of Justice reviews nine states have implemented. 

“Actually, this must be occurring in all places, and the truth that Detroit is contemplating one thing like this, I can’t inform you how excited I’m to listen to that.”

Violet Ikonomova is a reporter on the Detroit Free Press centered on authorities and police accountability. Contact her at vikonomova@freepress.com