Traffic policing reform stuck in gridlock

A proposal to explore removing Los Angeles police officers from traffic enforcement is stuck in gridlock. Again.

- BY LIBOR JANY

AN L.A. initiative to make traffic stops police-free is months behind schedule.

(GARY CORONADO Los Angeles Times)

The initiative to take the job of pulling over bad drivers away from cops is months behind schedule, frustrating reform advocates and some city leaders who argue that Los Angeles is missing an onramp toward the future of road safety.

Local officials first raised the prospect during the national reckoning on racial injustice that followed the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, but the plan has progressed in sluggish fits and starts since. Backers thought that they had scored an important victory with the release in May 2023 of a long-promised study mapping out how most enforcement could be done by unarmed civilian workers.

The City Council requested followup reports from various city departments to figure out how to do that and gave a three-month deadline. But more than a year later, most of the promised feasibility studies have yet to materialize.

"I'm very upset about the delay," said council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early champions. “Generally speaking, when you try to do a big reform like this, at least some portion of the people who want to do the work are very motivated to change the status quo — and I don’t think we have that here.”

He said that there was blame to go around for the continued delays, but that he’s encouraged by his conversations with officials from the involved departments that studies will be completed — a precursor to legislation that would allow for reimagining traffic safety. At the same time, he said that he still saw a role for armed police in certain traffic situations.