L.A. sheriff's deputies use minor stops to search bicyclists, with Latinos hit hardest
Thousands of times a year, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies pull over bicyclists for minor violations such as riding on the sidewalk or not using lights at night — infractions that can be handled with a warning or a ticket.
But deputies routinely escalate the stops into more intrusive encounters and disproportionately pull over Latino riders.
A Los Angeles Times investigation found deputies search 85% of bike riders they stop even though they often have no reason to suspect they’ll find something illegal. Most bicyclists were held in the backseat of patrol cars while deputies rummaged through their belongings or checked for arrest warrants.
The Times' analysis of more than 44,000 bike stops logged by the Sheriff’s Department since 2017 found that 7 of every 10 stops involve Latino cyclists, and bike riders in poorer communities with large nonwhite populations are stopped and searched far more often than those in more affluent, whiter parts of the county.
For all the stops and searches, deputies rarely catch criminals. During searches, they find illegal items just 8% of the time, The Times’ analysis shows. Weapons were seized just 164 times — less than half a percent of all searches.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-county-sheriff-bike-stops-analysis/#nt=00000175-c749-da42-a377-ff5f38920001-liA3promoSmall-7030col1-main
