The San Diego Police Department’s Internal Affairs division is investigating a traffic stop where an officer smashed a Black driver’s window after he…
Nicholas Hoskins raced through a lot of emotions moments before a San Diego Police officer shattered his passenger-side window last month: Anger, frustration, and a sense that police were treating him differently because he’s Black. It was the fourth time he’d been stopped in just a year.
NBC 7 Investigates looked at 666,406 police stops reported by San Diego Police over a 5-year period, from 2019 to 2023. Of that, people perceived as Black made up 22.5% of stops. According to the U.S. Census, only 6% of San Diegans are Black. Jordon told us there are four different categories that play a role in the disparity. The department has some sway with three of them: where officers patrol, policies about when to stop and search someone, and officer explicit or implicit bias. However, there’s not much Jordon told us the department can do about the fourth factor driving the racial gap —poverty and crime.
It’s an understatement to say Hoskins doesn’t have the best history with police or our criminal justice system. Until recently, his entire life existed behind the razor-wire fences and metal bars of a California prison. “I regret it too, because back then I wrote something stupid on Facebook every day,” Hoskins told us.
“It felt unbelievable,” Hoskins said. “I just kept reading the paper over and over again, pacing in my cell.” Weeks later, Hoskins says police stopped him for a taped-up tail light. He says officers asked to search his car, but he said no, and they let him go without a citation.This past March, San Diego police stopped Hoskins a third time. The officer told him his window tint was too dark, though didn’t write up a ticket.
“How many times have you been pulled out of your car for a traffic ticket?” asked Pride. “When you have somewhere to go and suddenly you’re stopped by police and asked to get out of the car, and you're treated like a criminal, you might be handcuffed, sat on the side of the road, cars are driving by looking at you. These are things that impact your psyche, your personality, your feelings for the day.
“When you look at the data, doesn’t make sense,” Pride said. “The criminal activity they’re targeting is not fully stopping at a stop sign. That happens as much in southeast San Diego as in La Jolla and there are not the same number of pullovers.” “You want to make sure they have a legitimate reason for being in that area at that moment,” Cappitelli said. “Nothing is ever, ever, ever good if it’s served to harass. We don’t ever want to see that.”
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that there aren’t bad cops,” Cappitelli said. “I’m not gonna stand here and tell you that there are probably never any racist cops within the ranks of policing.” Jordon pushes back on limiting police stops but agrees the answer to closing the racial gap will ultimately come from the community, and how the public wants to be policed.
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