Chief Moore said the vehicle stops were necessary right now because there were so many guns on the streets, but he emphasized that other strategies — such as working with gang interventionists — were a higher priority. And he said the numbers of stops had relatively been low — 538 so far this year in South Los Angeles, compared with more than 3,700 during the same period in 2019. (Last year the number of vehicle stops were minimal, he said, partly because of the pandemic.) As a Black man growing up in South Los Angeles, Mr. Harris-Dawson said he was routinely pulled over by the police, and that didn’t stop even as he rose to power in city politics. Mr. Harris-Dawson said that rather than being a pretext for more policing, the rise in crime should intensify efforts only at reform.

Source: New York Times May 23, 2021 19:25 UTC