DC Police statistics show African Americans stopped more often than people of other races: report

(FOX 5 DC)

District officials released statistics on Monday, and they show that African Americans are overwhelmingly more likely to be stopped than others.

Officials collected data on nearly 12,000 stops for the period of time covering late June to mid-August and discovered that these resulted in more than 80 percent receiving tickets or being charged with a crime. In addition, the vast majority – 86 percent – did not involve frisks.

African Americans were by the far the largest portion of people stopped. While they form only 46 percent of D.C.’s population, 70 percent of the people who were stopped were African American.

Thirty-five percent of the stops were prompted by calls for service, according to the report. Meanwhile, 70 percent of all people stopped for traffic stops in D.C. had their cars registered outside of the city.

In a call with reporters Monday, D.C. Police Department Chief Peter Newsham said it was unclear why African-Americans were stopped so much more often than people of other races in the District. He added that police would work to bring in an outside third party to seek the answer to that question.

The data collected in the report was required by the NEAR Act and was not initially collected until a court ordered the Metropolitan Police Department to collect the data this summer.

View the Stop Data Report in full below: