OLYMPIA — This year, state lawmakers could make it less likely you'll get stopped by police for a problem with your car, in the wake of police killings that began with a traffic stop.
House Bill 1513 would largely prevent police from stopping drivers for issues such as a broken taillight or expired tabs, and advocates say it would allow officers to focus on safety issues on the road and could reduce racial disparities in traffic stops.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Chipalo Street, D-Seattle, says the measure would develop trust with communities of color and there would be more clarity as to why they're being stopped.
"In turn that then improves community safety, again, because folks are more willing, are not afraid of the police and are more willing to work with them, then other crimes can be solved more easily," Street said.
Police could still stop a driver if an issue with their car posed an immediate, serious safety threat — say, driving without headlights at night. The bill would also provide grants to help low-income people fix their cars.
The proposal was the subject of a hearing Tuesday in the House Transportation Committee, as the January killing of Tyre Nichols, who was beaten by Memphis police after a traffic stop, has again shone a national spotlight on police violence during traffic stops, especially toward Black people.
Similar proposals were floated in 2021 and 2022. Street has taken the lead on the issue in his first term in office.
Street, who is Black, brings both policy interest and personal experience to his work: In public testimony, he recounted experiencing violence at the hands of police while walking down the street as a college student.
If it passes, the bill would mean a significant change in how Washington treats traffic stops. Not only would it narrow when police could stop drivers, it would also require written consent before police can search a vehicle.
It would also require police to report information about the stop, including the primary reason for the stop, when and where it happened and demographic information about the driver and officer.
Street and other proponents, including the ACLU of Washington, say the bill would free up more time for police to deal with serious driving problems, like drunken and distracted driving, after a year when Washington traffic fatalities were at their highest since 1990.
In mid-January, Street spent an evening riding around King County with a Washington State Patrol trooper, and he said it reinforced how much work officers had to do and how much time a single interaction could take.
Street told fellow lawmakers Jan. 30 that the video of Nichols' beating "reminds me of the helplessness of not being able to protect yourself when you don't know where the next blow is going to come from."
"It reminds me of the desperation of trying to find something to scream out so that you humanize yourself so that you stop the next strike and they stop hitting you," Street told his colleagues.
As a college student at Brown University, Street said in an interview, campus police stopped him and a friend, asking for their IDs while they were walking from the Brown campus on a public street. His friend stopped but Street kept walking. Campus police called for backup and Providence, Rhode Island, police arrived and beat him, he said. Street said he was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault on an officer, but his parents were able to pull together some money to get a lawyer and the charges were dropped.
The idea of limiting traffic stops for nonmoving issues has encountered resistance from some police groups, but law enforcement has voiced support for the provision to help low-income Washingtonians pay for car repairs and fees.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs opposes the bill, except for the program that would help people pay for car repairs, which it "strongly supports," said Executive Director Steve Strachan.
"It's dangerous to allow unsafe vehicles and unsafe driving behaviors to not be enforced," Strachan said in a statement. Under the bill, police could still stop drivers for moving violations like speeding, running a red light or drunken driving.
Local communities could decide how to use the grant money, Street said. For instance, a community organization could distribute vouchers to help people pay for car repairs.
The bill is moving through the Legislature in a session where lawmakers are reconsidering certain public safety policies, like how much to punish illicit drug possession.
Teresa Taylor, executive director of the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, said that after a series of reforms over the past few years, "law enforcement is being asked to go through a series of decision gymnastics on a variety of things."
"And so what we should want is to make it very clear for law enforcement where their boundaries are, how we want them using their time," Taylor said. "And if we do not believe that these nonmoving violations are worthy of law enforcement attention, then let's simply remove them from the statute."
Street said there were violations he didn't want to see condoned, that should remain illegal, but didn't have to be resolved by an interaction with police. He pointed to parking tickets, which don't have to be issued through a live interaction.
"It doesn't have to be a person with a gun having a forced interaction with someone," Street said.
Taylor also said that the bill would take away the chance for police to identify car problems that could become a serious safety issue down the line.
The amended version of the House bill says police can enforce nonmoving violations if a driver has already been stopped or detained for a moving violation, such as speeding. The bill defines a nonmoving violation as any parking, equipment or "paperwork" violation.
The State Patrol estimates the proposal would cost the agency about $8 million in the two-year budget beginning July 1, most of that going toward dispatchers to take the information police would be required to report under the bill.
The bill has support from the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, which includes family members of people killed by police.
Sonia Joseph's son, Giovonn Joseph-McDade, was killed by Kent police in 2017. He had been stopped initially for expired plates, Joseph said. In 2021, the city of Kent agreed to pay the family $4.4 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit.
"Low-risk traffic stops are ineffective at keeping people safe," said Joseph, who is president of the coalition's board. "I think that they just waste resources and it harms members of the community."
Traffic stops for nonmoving violations target poor people, who tend to have older cars, and seldom yield illicit drugs or criminal activity, said Frank Baumgartner, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"It's a needle in the haystack kind of strategy," Baumgartner said. "But it's a strategy that's been used for decades by police agencies throughout the country, and so it's very deeply embedded in police culture and practice and expectation."
Baumgartner wrote a book analyzing 20 million traffic stops in North Carolina and has looked at traffic stops in other states.
The Washington State Patrol found contraband material in .27% of 11 million traffic stops conducted between 2008 and 2018, according to the ACLU of Washington, citing data accessed via the Stanford Open Policing Project.
A Black driver was far more likely to be searched during a stop for a nonmoving violation than a white driver, according to the 20 million North Carolina traffic stops between 2002 and 2016 that Baumgartner analyzed.
While 1.31% of white drivers who were stopped for a nonmoving violation were searched, 3.54% of Black drivers were, Baumgartner said. That disparity was lower in stops for moving violations, but Black people were still searched at a higher rate.
Street said last week he's optimistic about the bill's prospects. Twenty-two other representatives have signed on to co-sponsor the bill and a companion bill in the Senate has six sponsors. All are Democrats.
Republican caucus leaders have expressed reservations.
Senate Republican Leader John Braun, of Centralia, told reporters Jan. 31 he believes Washington "largely" has a system that trains officers appropriately and holds them accountable.
"We should reinforce that if we need to, but it's hard to see how tolerating certain violations of the law helps us get there in an orderly and reasonable fashion," Braun said.
