Benicia Police Department officers were 5.7 times more likely to stop Black people than white people based on stops per 10,000 residents. Officers stopped people 4,283 times in 2023.
Passed in 2015, the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) required California police agencies to submit detailed data on every stop their officers made to the California Department of Justice. The law was intended to end identity-based profiling. It also created the RIPA board, which releases an annual report analyzing the data law enforcement agencies submit.
RIPA requires law enforcement officers to document information on every person they stop, including the individual’s race, gender and other identity attributes. Because the data is based on officers’ perceptions, this demographic data may not reflect how a person actually identifies. The data includes all stops officers make, such as traffic stops (the majority) and pedestrian stops.
The Benicia Police Department has reported this detailed data to the state since 2022. The data below reveals significant disparities in stop rates and, crucially, in whether the stops lead to an enforcement action like an arrest. These differences have fueled a growing debate over whether to end a police practice known as pretextual stops, in which officers use relatively minor infractions — often traffic violations — to probe for guns, drugs and other larger crimes.
Racial disparities in traffic stops are likely the result of many factors, including differences across groups in driving frequency and behavior, the level of police presence in that group’s community, and racial profiling. The degree to which racial profiling causes disparities in stops is disputed, though most research suggests bias plays some role. In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, 44% of Black adults said they believed they had been unfairly stopped by police because of their race.
The champion American gymnast Simone Biles found time overnight between counting her record haul of Olympic medals to ding Donald Trump on social media after his offensive and untrue remarks at a gathering of Black journalists earlier in the week.
She posted on X early on Friday: “I love my black job” with a black heart emoji alongside, responding to another post of her beaming with her latest Olympic gold medal.
“Simone Biles being the GOAT, winning Gold medals and dominating gymnastics is her black job,” posted the singer Ricky Davila.
The messages were an unmistakable takedown of the former president, who is once again the Republican party’s nominee for president.
Trump said in an interview with three top political journalists at the convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday that migrants were “taking Black jobs” in the US.
When asked to define a “Black job”, he said it was “anybody that has a job”.
His interview, in which he delivered numerous gaffes and insults, dismayed and outraged those gathered at the convention in Chicago and millions watching live on TV. He questioned the US vice-president and Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s identity as a Black woman and elicited gasps and derisive laughter from the audience.
Later that day, Harris called the remarks divisive and said: “America deserves better.”
It is not the first time Trump has made such remarks: in the presidential debate with Biden, he said migrants were “taking Black jobs now … they’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs”.
Joe Biden responded later, telling the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in a reference to Harris: “I know what a Black job is: it’s the vice-president of the United States.”
I talk with a lot of people – men, women, People of Color, white people, community leaders, young and older – and I want to point out something that deeply concerns me.
Four of my friends, who happen to be Black and who live and/or work in Benicia, have shared some hurtful experiences directed at them by other Benicia residents. I offered to write an article about their experiences, even anonymously, so Benicia can learn to recognize and challenge acts of racism, yet my friends prefer to keep quiet about it, rather than expose the situations. Each of them is an educated and professional individual of a mature age. What they experienced was clearly unjust and downright racist. And yet, they don’t want to share their story because they are afraid the perpetrator of the comment or act may see themselves in my article and may be upset and/or because they are concerned about the ramification if they complain.
Let me give you two very real examples: one of these friends eventually moved their business from First Street to Vallejo because of the ongoing hostility of the customers and neighboring businesses; another was directly asked how they feel about being promoted because of the color of their skin rather than their experience.
Clearly these incidents are not just well meaning but ignorant comments or even microaggressions. This is blatant racism, and my friends have every right to express that.
In comparison, look at the comments on Next Door or Benicia Happenings. I see people complaining about the littlest things all the time. Someone is upset about a neighbor’s guest using the parking space in front of their house. Another is angry because their trash was picked up late and the can was knocked over when it was finally emptied. And my personal favorite – someone complained that it’s disrespectful for a dog walker to put a baggie of droppings into their trash can. Would they rather the dog walker disrespectfully left the droppings on their lawn? Really, people?!
Yes, these things are annoying, but let’s keep it in perspective. And when I look at the photos of the people complaining, they don’t appear to be of color. Why is it that white people feel they can gripe about relatively insignificant and not personally intended slights when People of Color don’t always feel safe exposing something very deeply and morally wrong?
Ever since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the Black community on the whole has been admirably vocal and active about individual and collective experiences with racism. Their response to the obvious inequities in this country helped make some very hard-earned and very slow progress towards equity. But we’re not there yet, and it came at a very high cost. Many people lost their freedom, their health, their sanctity, and even their lives. Here we are sixty years later, and there are still injustices and inequalities, and yet, not all people feel safe speaking up. I get it. Who wants to be hated, harassed and alienated, particularly from within a small community? I wouldn’t like it, would you? But just because my friends don’t complain doesn’t make their experiences acceptable.
Here’s what I would love to see happen. First of all, for those of you who use public forums to air your frustrations, please think about your need to complain. Is it really something important that needs to be addressed, or is it something that can be easily resolved or quietly let go?
Secondly, everyone should feel safe and supported speaking up when they have been directly or even inadvertently targeted by an individual or community. A caring and inclusive community supports all of its residents and should help to right injustices. Finally, racism is ugly and unjust. It’s a blight on humanity, and it needs to stop. We are all humans. Let’s treat each other with respect.
[BenIndy Contributor Nathalie Christian – On Wednesday, March 29, the Benicia Unified School District (BUSD) issued a district-wide warning that the annual occurrence of the racist, violent “game” Benicia High School students call “La Migra” is anticipated to occur this Friday, March 31. For more than 20 years, the La Migra “game” has inflicted deep emotional and often physical harm on Benicia’s vulnerable youth, especially our youth of color. La Migra also claims countless hours of our police department’s time, tying up emergency resources and costing Benicia thousands in overtime wages and related spending. Despite all of this, too many in Benicia consider La Migra a harmless tradition. Although the game occurs off campus and is no way organized or condoned by BUSD, the district is right to call for an immediate end to this event and to warn the community of the imminent danger. – N.C.]
Let’s Stop ‘La Migra,’ A Dangerous Game of Chase – March 31, 2023
Posted by Benicia Unified School District March 29, 2023
Dear Benicia Community,
We want to bring your awareness to an unsanctioned and dangerous activity that Benicia teens have participated in over the last twenty years, which is an underground, and unwelcomed event in our community. It is a chase-and-capture game referenced as “La Migra”. This activity happens in the Spring, usually on a Friday evening in late March or in April. We have information that suggests this game may take place on Friday, March 31, 2023.
While this activity is not in any way organized or condoned by the schools, Benicia Unified School District, or the City of Benicia, there is an urgent need to provide our community with information and ask for your partnership in putting an end to this event once and for all. We want to provide awareness about this event and see it stopped for two important reasons: the inappropriate, racist, and offensive nature of the game and the incredible safety concerns for our students and innocent bystanders.
“La Migra” is slang for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is the name used for this controversial game based on ICE agents deporting undocumented immigrants. The event involves older students chasing younger students through the city, trying to catch them, and then possibly transporting or holding the student against their will. The event begins at one location, typically a park in town, with the younger students attempting to get to a second designated location without being caught by an older student. A student that is captured is sometimes dropped off in an unknown location. There are reports of extremely unsafe situations in the course of this event, including unsafe driving, students dressed in all black with masks running through backyards and private property, speeding, physical contact causing injury, unsafe physical detainment, and students being left without the ability to contact someone to pick them up. It is important to stop this activity immediately to keep students from being injured or harmed.
In addition to the physical safety concerns, Benicia Unified School District strongly advocates for respect for all individuals, regardless of race, place of origin, sexual orientation, or disability. A game such as “La Migra” causes harm, both physical and emotional, to members of our community.
We urge every family to discuss this event, use this as an opportunity for education and understanding, and help us put an end to this game in our community. In a city that has been nominated as a Be Kind city, continuing “La Migra” is counter-productive to this goal.
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