OAKLAND — Almost two-thirds of drivers Oakland police stopped in 2016 were African-Americans, who make up just over a fourth of the city’s population, according to a recent report.

Half of all citations Oakland police issued were to African-Americans, the report also found. African-Americans make up about 27 percent of Oakland’s population, 2010 census data shows.

“The Oakland Police Department recognizes that it is a very serious situation when people encounter police,” said Deputy Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who presented the report to the Public Safety Committee on Oct. 10. “Obviously we are, as a department, recognizing the disparities that exist within the numbers that we saw as a result of this report.”

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The racial disparity in traffic stops by Oakland police has been an ongoing issue that the Police Department is addressing, Armstrong said. Some City Council members and residents said though there’s plenty of data showing that it’s an issue, there isn’t enough on how much progress — if any — has been made to reduce the disparity.

Councilwoman Desley Brooks, a committee member, said the disproportionate traffic stops, compounded with poverty rates, can be devastating for Latinos and African-Americans.

“People who don’t have money, who get the tickets, who can’t pay for those tickets, who get their driver’s licenses taken away, get into a vicious cycle which pulls them down into further poverty,” Brooks said. “We are trying to address a major issue in this city.”

The committee asked the police department to return with another report containing more up-to-date and specific information about traffic stops and the department’s progress in reducing the disparity.

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Traffic stops overall have decreased, Armstrong said, and are expected to continue to drop. That’s due in part to the department urging officers to make discretionary stops based on preliminary information, rather than stopping people at random.

“We want officers to make stops based on intelligence,” Armstrong said. “We want them to have good information about individuals that they come in contact with or make stops on.”

In the past, the department deployed patrol officers according to where the most violent crime occurred. This strategy resulted in officers making “a high number of discretionary vehicle stops for traffic violations,” the report said; about half were for actual vehicle code violations.

Though the strategy was meant to tackle “the disproportionate amount of serious and violent crime,” the report said, it led to racially disproportionate stop rates. Data shows that the people who were stopped under that strategy were typically not connected to the serious crimes the strategy was meant to address.

Of the 32,569 people stopped last year,11,576 were issued citations, the report said. An additional 566 citations were issued for other reasons such as criminal offenses and probation or parole violations. Traffic stops where no ticket was issued could either be because the officer decided not to give the person a citation, or a crime or vehicle code violation did not occur.

“A whole bunch of people may not have had any reason to be stopped at all,” Brooks said. “So the issue isn’t just about those who get the violation or those who the officer feels he’s not going to give a ticket to. The fact that you’ve been stopped by the police when you’ve done nothing wrong is a major violation,” she said.

Requiring officers to fill out a form for every traffic stop was recommended by a Stanford University program, which issued 50 suggestions last June that Oakland police can implement “to effect cultural change, increase public trust and improve relationships with the community,” the department’s report said.

So far 23 of those recommendations have been followed, Armstrong said, and five more should be by February 2018; those remaining apply to other departments in the city.

Armstrong said police have also started assessing the stop data monthly and giving officers suggestions on how to reduce unnecessary stops.

“We’re looking at those stops and looking for the reasoning behind them to see if we can identify any patterns or trends that might be perceived as with some type of bias,” Armstrong said.

Before the Stanford report was issued, only 2 percent of the traffic stops resulted from preliminary information, Armstrong said. They now make up 25 percent of the stops.

Despite these changes, the disparity remains, Armstrong said.

“I am so tired of sitting in meetings and talking about the work we’re doing with Stanford and the numbers are still not changing,” Brooks said.

Coalition for Police Accountability coordinator Rashidah Grinage said the department’s focus at this point should be less on collecting data and more on making changes to address the disparity.

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“We already have enough data to sink a ship,” Grinage said. “What are the strategies being implemented to actually make a difference?”