Attention Los Angeles residents — your city council just voted to make your city even more dangerous. Let me show you exactly what they gave away.
They’ve been trying to do this since 2020. Six years. Six years of body cam footage showing cops aren’t racist killers. Six years of facts coming out on every case the left spins up. And they still got there.
They went after pretext traffic stops.
What a Pretext Stop Actually Is
A pretext traffic stop is the backbone of proactive policing. That’s when you’re on patrol, you see a car with a busted taillight full of gangsters, and you pull them over because you have a legal reason — that traffic violation. Then you start talking to them. You run their names. You see who’s in the car. You check for warrants. If they’re on probation or parole, you’re searching them. You’re getting guns off the street that were about to get used in a violent manner.
Pretext traffic stops are how cops prevent crime.
Without them, you’re left with cops responding to crime after it happens. Which means you’re just a victim. And in a city where you can’t carry a gun — that’s not a great look.
The Vote
14 to zero. Not one of them stood up to it. Somebody was absent, but not one of them voted against this. They’re all terrified of the left.
This council motion originated in June of 2020. It’s a George Floyd thing. The motion directs the police commission to prohibit officers from stopping motorists, bicyclists, or pedestrians for minor violations — except in cases where the violation poses a significant and imminent safety risk.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson — the man who wrote this motion — said on record, and I’ll quote him directly: “I know the amount of people that they catch — burglars and many other things through traffic stops. That doesn’t make it a just or rational policy.”
He knows it works. He killed it anyway.
This Isn’t Law Yet — But Don’t Get Comfortable
There’s a little bit of time. But I’m not optimistic. Here’s why.
This now goes to the civilian police commission of Los Angeles — all appointed by Mayor Karen Bass. Do you think there’s anyone on that commission who isn’t a leftist? If they vote it through, that’s it. No more proactive policing in Los Angeles.
The Numbers
Let’s talk about what we’re actually giving away. This covers a three-year period of LAPD traffic stops.
Total traffic stops: 760,000. Pretextual stops were only 9% of those — about 68,000 stops over three years. Of those pretextual stops, 30% found drugs, guns, or warrants. 30%. And 67% ended in a warning — no ticket, no citation, on their way.
So they’re telling you this doesn’t work. I don’t get it.
What Goes Away
Car full of gangsters, taillight out. You pull them over, driver’s on probation, you pull him out to search. You find a gun in his waistband. Maybe he was going to do a drive-by. You just prevented a crime from a busted taillight. That’s what they want to take away.
Another stop, someone’s on parole, you get consent to search the car, you find fentanyl. How many overdoses does that keep from happening?
You pull a car over for expired registration, run the passenger in the back seat — assault with a deadly weapon warrant. He’s off the street. Maybe he doesn’t assault someone this week.
You take this tool away, cops go reactive. They sit in parking lots. The anti-police sentiment is already pushing them that direction — the percentage of proactive cops in these big cities is dropping every year. The ones who are still out there doing the work won’t be able to do it anymore.
What you’re left with is 911 responders. Someone gets shot — cool, we show up, put the tape up, take some pictures, talk to witnesses who saw nothing, and leave. You get robbed — what’d he look like, where’d he go, how much was it? See you later.
Completely reactive. Policing becomes documenting crime stats.
The Part That Makes It Worse
California restricts your right to carry. It’s very difficult to get a CCW in LA County. So you can’t legally protect yourself. And now the officer who was supposed to be the equalizer — the one taking a swing at getting these people off the street before they hurt you — that’s going away too.
That officer can’t stop the car rolling dirty with a gun under the seat or a pound of fentanyl in the trunk.
And if you think criminals aren’t paying attention to this — if you think they won’t know the moment this policy goes into effect — think about how much worse this gets. People with warrants driving around doing whatever they want. No fear of being stopped. No fear of being checked. Why would you even have a driver’s license?
They’re trying to make this about race because there’s more crime in South Central LA than other parts of the city. But it’s not about race. It isn’t about traffic tickets. It’s about who gets emboldened when you take away the cops’ ability to do their job. And what that means to the residents they’re supposed to protect.
Four Traffic Stops That Changed History
These would all be restricted under what LA is trying to pass. Every single one.
Timothy McVeigh. 1995. Oklahoma City bomber. Caught 77 minutes after the blast, less than 80 miles away. A state trooper pulled him over for a missing tag and wrote him a ticket. They used that data to identify him and build the case. 168 people dead. Solved from a missing plate.
Robert Ben Rhoades. Arizona, 1990. A state trooper did a welfare check on a semi parked on the shoulder. Found a nude woman handcuffed and gagged in the cab — alive. The suspect turned out to be a serial killer with 50-plus murders. Stopped by a welfare check that this new policy would restrict.
Joel Rifkin. New York, 1993. Stopped for no rear license plate on Long Island. Suspect ran, crashed. Decomposing body found in the truck bed wrapped in a tarp. Confessed to 17 murders. Solved from a missing plate stop.
Ted Bundy. 1975 through 1978. Stopped three separate times on traffic enforcement. Rope, handcuffs, crowbars, the pantyhose he used as a mask — all found on traffic stops. 30-plus confirmed murders. Every single arrest was a cop paying attention to the little things.
The Bottom Line
The criminals in LA already know what this means.
It’s time for the residents to know too. If you live in LA or you know someone who does — tell them. Have them contact the police commission. Because if this passes, you’re screwed.
