Opinion | Moriarty got it right: Pretext stops are biased and ineffective

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“I don’t want you to get shooted. I can keep you safe.”

De’Anna Reynolds was just 4 years old when she spoke those heart-wrenching words to her mother. Reynolds had just witnessed police shoot and kill her father, Philando Castile, during a traffic stop. Police cited a broken taillight as the basis for the stop, but the real reason was racial profiling. Officers claimed Castile resembled a robbery suspect due to his “wide-set nose.”

Castile, like countless Black drivers before him, was the victim of a “pretext” stop, a practice where officers cite minor traffic infractions as cover for broader unwarranted investigations. Pretext stops continue to inflict significant physical, psychological, financial and even deadly harm on Black residents.

Thankfully, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is combating this harm by moving her prosecutorial resources in a way that could reduce these triggering encounters. Beginning Oct. 15, her office will no longer prosecute cases arising from stops for low-level infractions like expired tabs, broken taillights or mirrors, cracked windshields or excessive tint.

Reports from both the U.S. Department of Justice and Minnesota Department of Human Rights have made it crystal-clear: Traffic enforcement in Minneapolis is permeated by racial bias. Compared with white drivers, Black drivers were 6.5 times more likely to be stopped for minor infractions, 1.5 times more likely to receive a citation, 12.8 times more likely to have their vehicles searched and 9 times more likely to suffer violence at the hands of police.

The DOJ’s findings establish that Minneapolis traffic stops were not based on the number of accidents in an area, but were instead tied to the number of Black and brown residents who lived there. Even when traffic accident rates were the same in different neighborhoods, MPD initiated a larger number of stops for minor reasons in neighborhoods with fewer white people.

Perhaps most telling is that pretext stops do not increase road safety. Instead, they squander limited resources on targeting minor, non-dangerous offenses rather than on driving offenses that lead to destruction and, far too often, death.

We already know that moving resources to combating dangerous driving pays significant dividends. After Ramsey County limited enforcement of minor traffic offenses, stops fell by 86%, with a 66% drop in the number of stops of Black drivers. These changes came at no cost to public safety. The number of firearms confiscated remained stable.

In Fayetteville, N.C., a similar policy reduced racial disparities, decreased the number of crashes and had no impact on crime rates. In Philadelphia, a law reducing enforcement for low-level infractions resulted in a 54% reduction in stops of Black men.

Moriarty’s policy change could mean the difference between life and death for more Black drivers.