More than 70 percent of DC police stops are African-Americans, report says

As residents vigorously debate the future of law enforcement in D.C., the ACLU has released a report indicating that despite comprising 46 percent of the population, 72 percent of those stopped by the police are African-Americans.

The report examined D.C. police stop-and-frisk data collected between July 22, 2019, and December 31, 2019, "yielding data on over 62,000 stops, or approximately one stop every four minutes during the five-month period."

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The ACLU report finds that African American youths made up 89 percent of the people under 18 who were stopped and they were stopped at 10 times the rate of their white peers, only 0.6 percent of all stops -- and only 1.6 percent of non-traffic stops -- led to the seizure of guns, and the vast majority of people who experienced the least justifiable subset of stops were African American.

RELATED: DC Council passes emergency police reform bill

The District – like cities across the U.S. – has been gripped by unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Last week, the DC Council passed an emergency police reform bill -- a measure that limits police use of force, puts discipline in the hands of management, and changes policy on body-worn cameras.

DC Police Chief Peter Newsham says the Council “forgot about our 20 years of reform and they insulted us by insinuating that we are in need of reform."

RELATED: DC police chief tells officers the city council has "completely abandoned" them

View the full ACLU report below or click here: