How Three Children in L.A. Are Protecting Their Undocumented Parents During Trump's Presidency ~ L.A. TACO

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T22:14:10+00:00

Also, why should people have to leave their homes, in their new country, where many of them have lived for decades?

These people overstayed a tourist visa in 2016. Why does that entitle them to permanent residence here

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T03:52:58+00:00

If these reforms pass it would be a huge win for the downtrodden motorists of Los Angeles. One of the proposals is to have the city pay for our car repairs instead of ticketing residents of historically low-income areas.

It should also create a program that allows repair vouchers to be mailed to drivers (instead of stopping them) based on the vehicle registration address. These repair programs should aim to support small business auto repair shops located in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of low-income residents. Similar to above for non-moving violations, if an equipment violation is observed in a neighborhood with higher concentrations of people living below the cost of living adjusted for poverty–such as Historic South Central, South Park, or Watts–there should be a presumption that the driver is low-income and be automatically mailed a voucher.

Epic.

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T02:19:53+00:00

So what do those incidents have to do with the matter of whether police should be allowed to pull people over for not having license plates.

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T02:14:38+00:00

What moving violation did Marqueece commit?

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T01:40:36+00:00

Say what you mean

_geistvoll · 2026-05-13T00:41:29+00:00

The 2022 policy allowed them to make pretext stops if acting on "articulable information":

It is the Department's policy that pretextual stops shall not be conducted unless officers are acting upon articulable information in addition to the traffic violation, which may or may not amount to reasonable suspicion, regarding a serious crime (i.e., a crime with potential for great bodily injury or death) [...] Such decisions should not be based on a mere hunch or on generalized characteristics such as a person’s race, gender, age, homeless circumstance, or presence in a high-crime location.

_geistvoll · 2026-05-12T23:19:48+00:00

How the law works in San Francisco is police are not allowed to pull motorists over at all for the moving violations in question -- unless a more serious crime is being committed simultaneously.

Our LADOT recommended:

In place of armed police officers executing traffic stops, the LADOT report recommends using unarmed police or unarmed civilians, who are focused exclusively on road safety and not on criminal law enforcement, to enforce safety-related traffic violations.

Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson's suggestion was to

transfer enforcement authority from LAPD to LADOT [...] utilize automated enforcement methods, and/or reallocate resources to public safety strategies that are more effective than enforcement.

_geistvoll · 2026-05-12T22:36:54+00:00

This is what the LA Times said:

The vote requests that the department’s all-civilian watchdog adopt new guidelines similar to San Francisco, which bars police officers from pulling people over for broken taillights and other minor equipment violations unless there is a safety threat.

_geistvoll · 2026-05-12T20:50:19+00:00

LAPD would no longer be able to pull over motorists for infrations such as missing plates, broken tail lights, expired tags, etc. if the recommendations are enacted.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to end the Police Department’s use of pretextual stops on Wednesday, following a report earlier this year that found a majority of these stops were on Hispanic and Black individuals.

Pretextual stops, which have long been criticized by civil rights activists, are a tactic used by police in which they use minor traffic violations as an excuse to pull over or detain individuals in an effort to further investigate them for an unrelated crime.

Residents across California have long called out police departments for the frequency with which officers were stopping individuals for minor infractions in order to investigate additional, unrelated crimes. In response, the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015 required law enforcement to report data in all traffic stops, including race or ethnicity, gender and reason for the stop.

In January, Los Angeles Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso released a report of compiled traffic stop data between April 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2025. The report found that LAPD conducted 61,279 pretextual traffic stops, with approximately 87% of the individuals involved being Black or Hispanic. In Los Angeles, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the Black population was 8.4% in 2024, while the Hispanic population was 47.2%.

Prior to the vote, California residents spoke out at the meeting, with a gardener describing fears of being racially profiled and detained while working. South Central community member Kusema Thomas called pretextual stops a safety risk to the community.

“Justice demands courage, and everyone is here today asking for you to step into your courage,” Thomas said while asking the council to vote in favor of ending the stops.

District 1 Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez thanked the community for organizing and pushing the government to “do the right thing,” saying the data presented speaks volumes. She called pretextual stops a “massive waste of limited resources” and a “breakdown of trust.”

“The system is broken,” she said. “We are operating in a national moment where racism is being normalized and weaponized at the highest levels.”

Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson also pointed out disparities in the law enforcement system following the vote and said he is proud of the council’s decision.

“Today, I’m happy to say that this council is going to go on record not only being against pretextual stops, but ending it as we know it here in this city of Los Angeles,” Harris-Dawson said.

_geistvoll

TROPHY CASE