CRJA – Judge Ignored Police Officer’s Implicit Bias

We present the following case summary because it exemplifies well how the California Racial Justice Act should be applied when a police officer makes a traffic stop without being able to see the race of the driver.

Defendant Tommy Bonds, an African American man, was driving his car eastbound on El Cajon Boulevard.  Officer Cameron of the San Diego Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, formerly referred to as the gang suppression team, was traveling the opposite direction.

After the two cars passed each other, Officer Cameron made a U-turn, got behind Mr. Bonds’ car and activated his overhead red and blue lights.  In response, Mr. Bonds pulled into a gas station and stopped.  Both  Mr. Bonds and Officer Cameron recognized each other and each recalled that Cameron had stopped Mr. Bonds on a prior occasion.

Almost immediately, Mr. Bonds inquired whether he had been stopped because he was Black.  Cameron did not answer the question, but suggested he could not see Mr. Bonds’ race because Mr. Bonds was wearing a hoodie.  Mr. Bonds then asked if the officer pulls over white people on the same basis.  Cameron again did not answer the question, but asked Mr. Bonds if he had  “guns or anything like that in the car.”  Mr. Bonds admitted that there was a legally registered unloaded firearm in the back of the vehicle.

Cameron then handcuffed Mr. Bonds and arrested him.  Mr. Bonds was later charged with a misdemeanor violation of Penal Code § 25400(a)(1), carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle.

Mr. Bonds then filed a motion to dismiss under the California Racial Justice Act, codified at Penal Code § 745, which became effective in 2021.  The motion relied upon independent studies and statistical evidence showing significant racial disparities in local policing, particularly with regard to the nature and frequency of traffic stops.

The judge hearing the motion found that Mr. Bonds had made a prima facie case of racial discrimination under Penal Code § 745(c) by offering facts that the court was required to assume were true (see Finley v. Superior Court (2023) 95 Cal. App. 5th 12, 23).  The judge then set the matter for an evidentiary hearing.  

At the hearing, Mr. Bonds offered testimony from three experts.  Dr. Joshua Chanin, a quantitative statistical researcher and associate professor of public affairs at San Diego State University, discussed four independent research studies about racial bias in the SDPD as well as his own research on the topic.  

Beth Mohr, a retired SDPD officer and police policy expert, reviewed the body worn camera footage depicting the traffic stop and testified to her conclusion that Officer Cameron’s conduct during the traffic stop was consistent with racial bias.

Finally, Dr. Karen Glover, a sociologist specializing in race studies related to law enforcement and a professor at California State University, San Marcos, also reviewed the body worn camera video.  She testified about the difference between explicit and implicit bias, explaining why Officer Cameron’s statement and conduct during the traffic stop were consistent with racial profiling and his comment about Mr. Bonds wearing a hoodie up over his head meant something about criminality when it is connected to people of color.

Officer Cameron then testified and said he pulled over Mr. Bonds because his rear license plate was covered, but did not explain how he noticed a rear license plate violation as he approached Mr. Bonds’ car from the front or what caused him to make a U-turn and activate his overhead lights.

The judge then denied Bonds’ motion, commenting that studies about departmental histories were entitled to little weight because there was no way to draw conclusions about an officer’s state of mind from general statistics without speculating.  The judge found that Officer Cameron’s decision to make a traffic stop was not based on racial bias because he could not tell that the occupant of Mr. Bonds’ car was Black.

Mr. Bonds then appealed to the Fourth Appellate District, which reversed the trial court.  The appellate court clarified that Mr. Bonds did not need to prove intentional discrimination, which the trial court seemed to require.  However, implicit bias, by definition, is unintentional and unconscious.  Accordingly, whether Officer Cameron knew Mr. Bonds was Black before making the traffic stop was irrelevant to the issue of whether racial bias motivated the police stop.  Because the trial court failed to address the abundant evidence that the stop may have been the product of unintended racial bias, the appeal was granted.

The appellate court noted that once Officer Cameron realized Mr. Bonds was Black, he exhibited racial bias in his interactions with Mr. Bonds.

In a footnote, the appellate court suggested the real reason Officer Cameron made the traffic stop was because it saw a person driving with his hoodie covering his head.  Driving a car with one’s hoodie up is not illegal, so the traffic stop was illegal.  It was instead made to investigate someone trying to hide one’s identity by wearing the hoodie “up.”

In a separate footnote, the appellate court criticized the trial court for relying upon Officer Cameron’s statement that he did not know the race of the driver before making the traffic stop because if the officer had made a traffic stop of a “lowrider” vehicle, the officer could make a similar claim although it would be safe to assume the reason for the stop would be an expectation that the occupant were Latino.

The Fourth District therefore directed the trial court to vacate its order denying Mr. Bonds’ motion and to conduct a new hearing wherein implicit bias would be considered.