Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e25 Episode Script
Traffic Stops
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
The Southeast continued
its recovery from Helene,
port workers briefly went on strike,
and the Middle East inched closer
to all-out war,
something one local station tried
to fold into its broadcast
with mixed results.
We've got some breaking news.
Iran has launched a missile attack
against Israel.
The U.S. officially had warned Iran
earlier to not launch any missiles
or else there could be
severe consequences.
Again, we're going to continue
to gather more information
and follow this and provide that
for you as soon as we get it.
Also, switching gears here now,
today National Taco Day falls
on the first Tuesday of October.
You may not know this,
Tamara Berg recently competed
in a taco eating contest.
At Jimboy's Tacos.
You really are what you eat,
aren't you, Tamara?
Absolutely. And you guys know,
and if you follow me,
my passion runs deep for tacos.
Excellent. That is exactly
what I want from local news.
Save the globally significant events
for later!
I want to see a journalism major
with a giant taco on her head
look directly into the camera
and say, and I quote,
"my passion runs deep for tacos".
Just imagine other news delivered
that way.
From Dallas, Texas,
the flash apparently official.
President Kennedy died
at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time.
Switching gears: you probably
already knew this about me,
but I'm the biggest
hot dog hound around.
Meanwhile, it was the vice
presidential debate on Tuesday,
in this very building.
In fact, this studio served
as the post-debate spin room,
meaning that you are all breathing
in the same air particles
that were once inside
Don Jr.'s nose and mouth.
So, if anyone in this audience wakes up
tomorrow feeling
like you have a sore throat and you're
a total disappointment to your father,
that is probably why.
In contrast to the presidential debate,
Walz and Vance seemed at pains
to be courteous to one another,
something many commentators
saw as a plus.
The debate was so polite, it's being
called a night of Midwest nice.
Despite their differences,
they still managed to be civil.
It was so refreshing
to see these two guys, though.
- They were so polite to one another.
- They were, I liked it.
This was a civil debate.
It almost seemed like these
guys kind of liked each other.
In many ways, that's what the country
has been saying they want more of.
First: on the list of things America's
been saying it wants more of,
civility is at best number six,
after affordable healthcare,
gun control, cheaper housing,
reproductive rights, and starring
vehicles for Nicola Coughlan.
But also,
why do manners matter here?
The debate included discussions
on how to carry out mass deportations,
and whether women should have control
over their own bodies.
Etiquette is kind of beside the point.
It's like reading a ransom note
and going,
"This cursive is just so lovely.
Look at the capital Y in
'You have 24 hours before he dies.'
There are still some people
who were raised right."
And complimenting Vance on his
civil tone is a little hard to take,
given how he spent
the rest of his week.
Just days before the debate,
he took part in an event
called The Courage Tour,
hosted by Lance Wallnau, a prominent
far-right Christian nationalist,
and someone who's talked
about Kamala Harris like this.
She can look presidential.
We'll go to this later.
That's the seduction
of what I would say is witchcraft.
That's the manipulation of imagery
that creates an impression
contrary to the truth.
But it seduces you into seeing it.
That occult spirit I believe
is operating on her and through her.
First: Harris isn't the one who's been
relentlessly promoting witchcraft,
you're thinking
of Universal's marketing department.
And this guy clearly shouldn't
be commenting on the election.
He should be standing in a tent
in 1856
selling children mercury tonics
he claims will let them talk to ghosts.
It feels like the question that lower
banner should really be asking there is,
"Hold on,
is this wacky bitch for real?"
And it gets worse.
Because at the event in Pennsylvania,
Wallnau explained Vance had been
scheduled to be elsewhere,
but God managed to change
his plans
and you are not going to believe
the logic behind that.
As you know, we have vice presidential
candidate JD Vance coming.
And I'll be honest with you, I take
that as a direct act of God.
Because it just came together
in a certain way.
Pittsburgh wasn't even on the map, it
was supposed to be North Carolina.
And God switched it that fast,
for you.
Apparently, God made sure Helene's
floods brought JD Vance to that event.
And look, I'm not the authority
on being Christian.
I was evidently the only comedian
in the world who did not meet
the fucking pope this year.
But if you believe in a god who'd
unleash a devastating hurricane
just so JD Vance could spend
an afternoon outside Pittsburgh,
your god sounds like an asshole.
And during Vance's appearance
at the event,
he seemed more than happy
to play to the crowd.
The American education system used
to be the envy of the world.
Rich or poor alike, we believe in this
country that every person deserves
a quality education.
Well, now we've got American children
who can't add five plus five,
but they can tell you that there
are 87 different genders.
What are you talking about?
That is obviously bigoted bullshit.
If any kids are missing out
on their addition lessons,
it's for the exact same reason
they always have:
because they're way too distracted
by the class hamster.
How are kids supposed to focus
on their math worksheet
when Meatball over here is sprinting
on his wheel like he's on coke,
rolling around chaotically
in a toilet paper tube,
and panic-stuffing his cheeks with
a month's supply of carrot chunks?
He looks like Marlon Brando
in "The Godfather"
and those kids are supposed to focus
on math!? It's not happening!
But that is who Vance actually is.
And at the end of the debate, he let
a glimpse of that come through,
when the subject turned
to the last election,
and he offered this revisionist history.
Remember, he said that
on January the 6th,
the protesters ought
to protest peacefully.
And on January the 20th,
what happened?
Joe Biden became the president.
Donald Trump left the White House.
Did he lose the 2020 election?
Tim, I'm focused on the future.
That is a damning non-answer.
Yeah, it is. "I'm focused on the future"
is one of the most generic, store-brand
fuckboy deflections there is.
It's no wonder Tim Walz broke
the fourth wall there
like he was in "Abbott Elementary".
Because "I'm focused on the future"
is what you say
when you want to change the subject.
If not, you just answer the question.
I'll show you.
"John, have you ever murdered
someone?" No, I haven't.
"Have you ever been mistaken
for Penn Badgley?" No, I haven't.
"Have you ever been forcibly removed
from a Rainforest Cafe for insisting
that the frog was coming on to you?
Look, I'm focused on the future.
I'm moving forward.
And that answer was especially glaring
considering the day after the debate
a judge unsealed special prosecutor
Jack Smith's 165-page brief
in the election fraud case
against Trump,
reminding us yet again of the ridiculous
steps he took to avoid leaving office.
The brief presents the fullest picture
yet of Smith's case
that Trump knew he lost, but lied
to the American people anyway.
Prosecutors claim they spoke
to one White House staffer
who said he overheard
Trump telling family members,
"It doesn't matter if you won
or lost the election.
You still have to fight like hell."
But it super matters if you lost!
It's the main thing that matters.
That is the most unsettling thing
you could possibly overhear
if you work in the White House,
including LBJ ordering pants with
more room around his "bunghole",
real ones will know,
and Commander Biden mauling
his 78th Secret Service agent.
And while there is a lot in the filing
that we already knew,
like Trump responding after being told
Mike Pence had to be evacuated
from the Capitol with "so what?",
it also featured new details,
like Trump at one point muting
Sidney Powell
when she was outlining
her bogus fraud claims,
telling people she was "crazy".
And if I ever found out that I lied
so badly
that Donald Trump muted
the call to say,
"this is some crazy shit,"
you would never see me again.
I would walk directly into the ocean.
And none of this is theoretical.
If he loses next month,
there's every reason to believe
Trump will dispute the results again.
And Vance has made it clear
he's got no problem with that.
And that alone
should be disqualifying.
For all the talk this week
about his "civility" at the debate,
let's not forget, deep down,
he's the same colossal dipshit
who spews right-wing hate
with distressing ease,
and continues to defend the big lie
that the last election was stolen.
It is all tremendously bleak,
which is why, to borrow
a phrase I heard recently,
"I'm focused on the future."
Specifically, one in which
in four weeks' time,
Trump hopefully loses
this fucking election. And now, this.
And Now: Mika Brzezinski Would
Like Her Co-Hosts
to Please Shut the Fuck Up
About Sports.
Their quarterback did
an extraordinary job.
Let's just stop pretending
that the SEC doesn't play
on a completely different level
than everybody else.
And now let's just stop talking
about sports and do the news.
Even down two-oh tonight
at Madison Square,
it's gonna be crazy. It really is.
I'm gonna move onto other news now.
Couple of incredible games tomorrow.
Uruguay and France.
All right. I'm going to take
the furniture out of the room.
There might be a game seven,
Richard,
because that's a good team.
Mika, I swear we'll get off sports.
We'll get to more sports later.
We'll get to the news now.
No, we won't.
We just didn't have enough time
for sports. We will get back to it.
This has to put Pep Guardiola
Mika! Katty is talking about Man City
and you're reading.
I just want to ask a quick baseball
question. You're a former baseball guy.
We haven't talked about sports
yet today.
On the five-yard line, drives it.
Mika thinks, "Oh, Super Bowl".
Do you just keep going, talking
about baseball just to upset Mika?
- Yes.
- It is, isn't it?
You should just pick up your device
or read the paper
whenever they go to sports.
I clean my purse.
While we bumped in with those
New York Knicks
the last time they advanced
to the NBA's finals
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns cars,
where golf carts see themselves
in five years.
Specifically, we're going to talk
about traffic stops,
the most common law enforcement
interaction in America.
Police pull over more than
50,000 drivers on a typical day,
adding up to more than 20 million
motorists a year.
And they do so for all sorts of reasons,
from speeding,
to broken taillights,
to, spectacularly, this.
The way he came up to the truck,
I knew. "I done pissed this man off".
He's mad about something.
"You're under arrest." And I was like,
"For what? What did I do?"
The reason I pulled you over is your
derogatory sticker on the back.
- It's words.
- What do those words mean?
- It's ass, eat.
- I eat ass.
If I told you I went to jail for
a sticker? "Yeah, whatever, dude."
You're not going to believe that.
All in capital letters, "I eat ass".
Yes! Every part of that is excellent.
Very much including the "Ass me about
my First Amendment rights" T-shirt,
which is a masterclass
in personal branding.
Though, I'm just gonna say it, that guy
doesn't strike me as a real eater.
Don't get me wrong,
I'm sure he's enthusiastic.
But attentive and willing to follow
directions? Absolutely not.
But as you undoubtedly know,
not all traffic stops make the news
because they're ridiculous.
Sometimes, it's because they end
in violence.
Since 2017, police have killed at least
813 people during traffic stops,
with Black people disproportionately
impacted,
making up 29% of those killed,
despite representing only around 14%
of the population.
We've all seen the videos
of high-profile killings
like those of Philando Castile,
Daunte Wright, or Tyre Nichols.
The horror of those videos
should be seared
into our collective consciousness
by now,
so I'm not going to be playing
any of that footage tonight.
And for Black people in particular,
those incidents have highlighted
what they already know only too well,
that driving comes
with a constant undercurrent of fear.
What does it mean to drive while Black?
Driving scared. Every time you get
in your vehicle, you're scared.
Because if any cop gets behind you,
if you ask any African American,
our hearts instantly drop.
It means to drive around in fear. It
means to drive around in, also, hope.
What's the hope?
Hope that we make it home safe.
How do you think your life would be
different if you were a white dude?
For driving purposes, I wouldn't
worry every time I see a cop.
Look, there are lots of things people
have to worry about while driving.
Getting lost, getting into an accident,
getting stopped by a crosswalk
flash mob where James Corden
thrusts at your car
while dressed like a large mouse,
all real and upsetting possibilities!
But no one should also have
to worry about getting harassed
or potentially killed.
And while the incidents that give rise
to that fear often get discussed
as the result of individual
"bad apple" cops, the truth is,
they're the inevitable result
of deliberate decisions
that've turned traffic stops
into a systemic issue.
So, tonight, let's talk
about traffic stops:
the power we've given
to cops during them,
how they exercise and often abuse
that power,
and some simple ways
we can start to change all this.
And let's start by acknowledging
that police do pull people over
for completely legitimate
road safety reasons,
like dangerous speeding
or drunk driving.
And you want those people
off the roads.
You don't need me to show you a clip
about the importance of road safety,
but I'm gonna do that anyway,
because when else am I gonna have
the chance to show this?
An accident!
The humans had an accident!
There was a child in the car!
A child?
Cats have nine lives, children
only one. Help them live that life.
Buckle them into a car seat. No one
wants a child to become a memory.
That was a lot.
I'd almost forgotten all those
weird characters from "Cats",
like Anjelicasplat, Turnip,
Zazzle-Skunk,
Old Colostomy, Skeezle-Jizz,
Nipple-Twister,
and Mister Bumblefuck.
I don't remember their real names, but
I'm pretty sure that's close enough.
And let me say this,
that musical is an abomination.
If there is ever a day that
Andrew Lloyd Webber has no haters,
that means that I am dead and so,
by the way, is Patti LuPone.
But of course,
that ad is completely right.
You don't want someone
driving unsafely
to claim the life of a child,
a child, a child.
But the truth is, lots of stops
aren't about safety at all.
In fact, many are so-called
"pretextual" stops,
basically, the police using a minor
traffic violation to detain you,
while they investigate for further
evidence of crimes
like illegal guns or drugs.
And they have a lot of leeway
to do that.
Because when it comes
to searching your house,
the Fourth Amendment generally
requires police get a warrant approved
by a judge beforehand.
But when it comes to cars,
the courts decided that,
because cars can drive away,
requiring a warrant is impractical.
So, over the years, the Supreme Court's
given police wide discretion
in how a traffic stop is handled.
And in 1996, in Whren vs. the U.S.,
it fully legalized pretextual stops,
unanimously ruling
that the constitutional
reasonableness of a stop
did not depend
on the actual motivations
of the individual officers involved.
Essentially, as long as police have
evidence of a traffic violation,
however minor, they can use a simple
stop to start a criminal investigation.
And what this means in practice
is that a lot of stops now amount
to just shaking people down
to see what crimes fall out.
One of the popular manuals for training
police in traffic investigations
flat-out states, "Criminal patrol
in large part is a numbers game,"
and, "you need a lot of contacts to find
the relatively few felony offenders
you're most interested in."
One former officer has even admitted,
"We fish. If I follow a car
for five minutes,
I can always find one
or two moving violations."
And that is true. There are
so many laws on the books,
a cop can always find a reason
to pull someone over.
Experts say finding the initial reason
to pull someone over is easy.
That became quickly apparent during
an afternoon with an officer
of the Oakland,
California police department.
This Infiniti that drove by
has a bumper that's loose,
that's a vehicle code violation.
All lights must work, right?
So, his top brake light does not work.
So, I can stop him for that.
Right. And it's not just loose bumpers.
There are tons of minor infractions
on the books.
Massachusetts has a list of traffic
violations that's 25 pages long.
Florida's is 32 pages.
And in New York City,
the list is 135 pages long.
And no driver is going to be familiar
with every single rule.
No one is reading that whole thing!
Not even me, and I have resting "reads
traffic codes for pleasure" face.
And some of the laws around
the country are truly absurd.
Some states, for instance,
have laws that prohibit drivers
from hanging objects
from their rearview mirrors,
including air fresheners
and rosary beads.
Incidentally, a dangling air freshener
was a justification
for pulling over Daunte Wright.
But many officers will insist that
pretextual stops are essential
to fighting crime.
Here's a police chief explaining
why stopping someone
for having something as innocuous
as an air freshener
actually makes total sense.
So, it could seem petty to some people.
But in my 32 years in law enforcement,
I've seen many minor traffic violations
lead to big arrests.
Wanted felons, fugitives from justice,
murder suspects.
But that is still petty.
It is petty to pull someone over for not
wanting their car to smell like farts
and a yogurt that they know is back
there somewhere but cannot find.
And when pressed for evidence
of pretextual stops
being an effective crime-fighting tool,
cops will constantly bring up that this
is how a state trooper caught
Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh,
by stopping him for driving
with no license plate.
It's a case that now "holds mythic
status among police officers".
Which is a little weird because, one,
he was only caught after the bombing,
which, to be honest, feels
a little more like a miss than a hit.
And two, the reason they were able
to arrest him
is because McVeigh was carrying
a concealed weapon,
something which is not actually illegal
in Oklahoma anymore.
So, if we've all got our dicks up
for hanging on to laws
that caught Timothy McVeigh,
let's go ahead and add gun control
to that pile, shall we?
But the truth is, research has
consistently shown pretextual stops
do very little to make us safer.
A Philadelphia study found that,
out of 300,000 stops,
only .67% recovered
any sort of contraband
which could include weed
and just .17% recovered any weapons.
So, when you measure the success
rate of pretextual stops
with any metric other than "percentage
of Timothy McVeighs caught,"
they're a tremendous waste of time.
Also, for what it's worth,
in some smaller municipalities,
police aren't just looking for crimes,
they're looking for money.
There are towns around the country that
have resorted to ramping up ticketing
while enduring budgetary shortfalls.
Basically, as soon
as their balance sheet gets worse,
magically, it seems, so do the driving
skills of the people in their community.
We've talked before about the practice
of using municipal violations
to fund local government, in places
like Ferguson, Missouri
and Brookside, Alabama.
And people can still wind up being
stopped, ticketed,
and even imprisoned
for inability to pay.
Because in 17 states, minor traffic
violations are arrestable offenses
that come with a criminal record.
And even in states
where that is not the case,
people can still end up in jail
because many places can lock you up
for failure to pay fines.
Just listen to this woman
from St. Louis explain
how traffic fines can quickly spiral
into a dire situation.
How many times
have you been stopped?
I'm in St. Louis,
I don't keep count of that.
Five? 10?
Keep going. 10 was the minimum
number of times I've been locked up.
So, take that and double it. I've been
stopped no less than 20 times.
If you don't have the money to pay
the fine, you can go to court.
When you go to court,
they'll tell you court costs, ticket,
plus fees,
you now owe $300.
"Do you have $300 to pay today?"
No.
"All right, put you on a payment plan.
So, every month, come see us
and pay this by the 21st.
If not, we'll issue you a warrant
on the 22nd.
Make your payments on time."
So, let's say you don't make that
payment, you get a warrant.
So, what do you do? If you have
the resources, you can pay,
but most people
don't have the resources.
So, you just, you run.
And catch me if you can.
How many warrants did you rack up?
At one point in time, I was wanted
in 11 different municipalities.
11 different municipalities.
How did you live with that?
Carefully.
Yeah, that seems about right!
Asking, "How do you live with
11 warrants?" is a bit like asking,
"How do you hold a newborn baby?"
or, "How do you give a porcupine
a hand job?"
the answer is, fucking carefully.
And the cost of these stops
is borne overwhelmingly
by communities of color,
and particularly Black drivers.
One analysis
of a Massachusetts county found
that police pull over Black drivers
at more than twice the rate
of white drivers
for non-traffic safety violations,
like a broken taillight.
And many police departments,
even large ones, will obscure this
by simply refusing to track the racial
makeup of who they stop and search.
While others will gather the data,
but fail to connect the dots
as to what it means.
Just watch this police official
in New Jersey cite data of his own,
before having his case destroyed
with a pretty simple statistic.
I mean, I pulled our motor vehicle
stopped data by race this morning
before we did the interview
to get it in real-time.
And we're at 1,814 motor vehicle stops
for the year so far.
And 576 are Hispanic, 573 white,
and 574 African American.
So, it is pretty even across the board.
And if it ever spikes
then we'll investigate why.
Yeah, but what you just told me
is really stark
because 60% of the population
of Bloomfield is white
and only about 20% of the population
is Black.
So, how do you account for that?
Like I said before, it's basically where
our police officers are deployed.
Right! It's about where
your officers are deployed!
You are so close to figuring it out,
you just need to see
the obvious conclusion.
It's like watching a fourth grader
do a multiplication problem
on the blackboard,
get all the way to the end,
and then write the answer
"Woody Allen is innocent".
No! What? How did you get to that?
The answer's staring you in the face,
you idiot!
Racial profiling during traffic stops
is obviously nothing new,
from the Jim Crow-era South,
all the way through the '80s,
when cops were trained
using a drug courier profile,
which had them looking
for "supposedly telltale traits,
like dreadlocks and wearing
lots of gold jewelry",
which is profiling both Black people
and I guess, very occasionally,
white girls named Branch
who make their own tampons.
But she's going to be fine.
Her dad is a senator.
That was even before that Supreme
Court case that I mentioned earlier,
which raised the bar to prove cases
of racial bias.
Because to do that now,
you need to establish intent,
which is obviously hard, because
no cop is gonna explicitly admit
they pulled you over because
of your race.
And that has led courts to allow
some pretty explicit profiling.
One federal judge even rejected
claims of racial intent
after an officer justified pulling
over a Black driver by saying,
"One can never tell with you people."
And if that doesn't prove racial intent,
I'm not sure what does.
Even more recently, just listen
to the officer
who pulled over Philando Castile
for a broken taillight, by the way,
explaining on the radio beforehand,
why he was about to do that.
I'm going to stop the car.
I'm going to check IDs.
I have reason to stop it. The driver
looks more like one of our suspects
just 'cause of the wide-set nose.
Holy shit! It is hard to argue
you're not profiling someone
when you're pulling them over
because of their face's literal profile.
Castile was apparently pulled over
in and around St. Paul, Minnesota
46 times, amassing more
than $5,000 in fines.
And his mother is pretty clear
about what was happening to him.
Why do you think your son
was stopped so many times?
Because he was Black.
I mean, nobody can be that unlucky.
And nobody is that horrible of a driver.
It wasn't he ran a stop sign,
or he was in a car accident.
It's none of that. It's what
they call now pretext stops.
Yeah. She's just stating
the obvious there.
There is no other interpretation.
It's not some big unsolvable mystery
like, "What happened
to Amelia Earhart?"
Or, "Where do all your socks go
when you wash them?"
Or, "What the fuck
do these two talk about?"
Questions no one has an answer to.
I'm not saying I'm not happy
for them. I'm happy for them!
I'm saying I just don't know what their
dinner table conversation is like,
and I don't think you do, either.
But we're happy for them!
The point is: the stakes here
are incredibly high.
And infuriatingly, cops will sometimes
glibly remind drivers of that.
Just watch this interaction
between a Florida officer
and a driver he saw as uncooperative.
29-year-old Gerardson Nicholas
was on his way to work
when he was pulled over
for not wearing his seatbelt.
Let's show you how it all went down.
- Going to jail today?
- I'm going to work, man.
No, you're not going to work. You're
going to give me your driver's license.
Give me your driver's license,
registration, and insurance.
If not, you will not be going
to work today. Simple thing, man.
This is how you guys get killed out
here, man. Registration and insurance.
Say that again.
Yeah, say that again. Because there
is a lot to object to in that exchange,
but let's zero in on the passivity
of the words "get killed"
as if a shooting is going
to be something that just happens,
as opposed to an action that officer
would be choosing to take.
And one major reason why cops
may be especially jumpy during stops
is they're actively taught
to fear them.
Trainers and tactical guides often
claim that "vehicle stops account
for more killings of officers than
almost any other type of interaction."
And police training can reinforce
all of this. Just last year,
some footage came to light from
a six-day training conference for cops
held in New Jersey,
a significant portion of which focused
on traffic investigations,
and also featured
this bold motivational speech.
I love what the fuck I do for a living.
There's nothing else I'm good at.
I love violence, I love fighting,
I love shooting,
and I fucking love freedom.
It wasn't that long ago that we were
drinking out of the skulls
of our enemies.
I'm gonna fucking murder this guy
then I'm gonna take his head,
then I'm gonna cut his head in half,
and then I'm gonna boil his skull,
and then I'm gonna drink out of it.
Fucking rad, right?
Okay, a few things.
First, no, not fucking rad.
Second, I do believe you that there
is nothing else you're good at.
And least importantly,
why are you wearing a shirt
covered in elegant birds?
You're talking like
a deranged serial killer,
but dressed like you're at brunch
in West Palm Beach.
That shirt doesn't remotely match
your persona,
which, from what I can tell is "what
if someone fed Milo Ventimiglia
nothing but raw meat and trauma?"
That conference was run by a company
called Street Cop Training,
whose logo apparently features
an eagle dry-humping a police badge.
The company estimates that it trains
between 25,000 and 30,000 officers
nationwide every year.
In fact, between 2020 and 2023,
public agencies in at least 46 states
provided direct payment
to Street Cop Training.
That conference you just saw
was attended by nearly 1,000 officers
from around the country,
who, in addition to hearing speeches,
were also given what was called
a "Reasonable Suspicion
Factors Checklist,"
a list of behaviors supposedly
indicating when a driver is trying
to cover up a more serious crime.
It advises looking out for things like
"passengers on their cell phone,
usually texting" during a stop,
and "not always but often yawning."
The checklist also says it's suspicious
if a driver looks away
from the police car while passing it,
but also if they look at it,
leaving the option of closing your
eyes while driving past a police car,
which feels bad. And you know
who'd agree with that?
Those road safety freaks from "Cats".
You know, like Rumple-Weasel,
Crunkle-Butt, Jumble-Scat,
Lickety-Flop,
Jazzle-Banger, Jingle-Sphincter,
and of course, Old Tinkle-Shit.
Again, I don't remember their names,
and I'm not willing to learn.
All in all, what was taught at that
conference was so egregious,
New Jersey's Office of the State
Comptroller found
that "a number of the tactics were
both unjustifiably harassing
and unconstitutional."
And for all the fear pumped into cops,
I should note that, while it can,
of course, be a dangerous job,
studies have shown that the dangers
of stops have been vastly inflated,
with an officer's chance
of being killed during a stop
estimated at somewhere between
one in 3.6 million,
and one in six and a half million.
As one DA who's called
for police reform has said
"The risk is statistically negligible,
but existentially amplified."
And it is notable
that during certain encounters,
cops do seem able
to have less of a hair trigger.
Because while that man in Florida got
lectured for having the temerity
to talk back to an officer, just watch
this cop deal with a driver
immediately doing a lot more than that.
What do you think you're doing, pulling
me over? For blowing my horn?
Sir, go back into your car.
I'll be back in a second.
You better check the registration
on this plate soon, mister.
That guy exited the car
with full righteous bitch energy.
He delivered that line with
the conviction of Julia Roberts
in "Pretty Woman".
"Big mistake! Big! Huge!"
That guy, by the way,
was a county judge,
and when the cop found that out
after checking his registration,
this is how their interaction ended.
- Have a good day, Judge.
- You bet.
"You bet." Responding
to "have a good day" with "you bet"
instead of saying "you too"
is a level of petty self-assuredness
I will never attain.
When that man orders at a restaurant
and waiters tell him, "Good choice,"
he says, "I know".
And incidentally, you might assume
the back of his car is blacked out there
to hide his license plate,
but I'm gonna choose to believe it's
because he was proudly displaying
one of those "I Eat Ass" stickers.
Prove me wrong, Judge!
Prove me wrong!
And for Black drivers,
even when traffic stops don't result
in a shooting, or an arrest,
or even a fine,
there can still be real harm,
from the steady wear and tear that
comes from dehumanizing interactions.
Take what happened to Tae-Ahn Lea,
a teenager who, in 2018,
was driving home after grabbing
a slushy and chips at a gas station.
He was pulled over for supposedly
making too wide a turn,
subjected to questioning about
whether he had drugs in the car,
which he didn't,
and was then ordered to step outside,
where he was handcuffed and frisked,
while police searched his vehicle.
And just watch how, when a cop tries
to blame him for the stop,
Lea calls him on his bullshit.
If you don't mind me asking,
why do you have this negative view
towards the police?
What's the deal?
What's ever happened in your life
personally
where you can give me
a good explanation?
- Absolutely nothing.
- Really?
I graduated. I got a good-ass job.
I graduated with three full-ride
scholarships.
I never did shit in my life.
I've been in the house all day.
What's the problem?
Like, why are we in this situation?
You. Fucking you put me
in this situation. You pulled me over.
Yeah! Of course it's that cop's fault.
He's playing dumb while creating the
problem! It'd be like me asking you,
"Why are you
so bummed out right now?"
as if I haven't been professionally
bumming you out
for the past 25 minutes.
The cop who pulled Lea over later
testified that he believed he was armed
because of "the interaction with him and
seeing him display the nervousness,"
which is clearly ridiculous.
And thankfully, a judge later sided
with Lea,
ruling that "nervousness alone
is not a sufficient basis
on which to articulate
reasonable suspicion."
A legal rationale that experts refer
to as "a fuckin' duh".
That cop also tried to justify
his actions by mentioning
"the presence of a small souvenir
Louisville Slugger bat in the car,"
which he claimed could
have been used as a weapon.
But you should know that the bat
in question was one of these,
weighing only six ounces.
And I'm sorry, but that is not long
enough to be a weapon.
It's barely long enough to be one
of Pinocchio's nose boners.
As that stop continued,
another cop arrived,
and so did Lea's mother,
who asked him why her son
was being treated this way.
And he explained they were actually
part of a serious crime unit,
and essentially admitted
that doing bullshit traffic stops
was a key part of their job.
One of the aspects of what we do is
we focus on traffic stops, okay?
You listening to me?
Yeah, I'm listening.
Right now,
I don't want the history.
It's not history. I'm telling you what
we're doing right now, okay?
I'm trying to just let you understand,
but it's like you don't want to hear it.
- I just want to hear about my son.
- I'm getting to that.
I'm getting to that. I'm telling you
why your son is being stopped
and why he's out of the car,
but you're not allowing me to do that.
So, it's a traffic infraction
that he was stopped for. Okay?
I don't believe that, but okay.
You don't believe it. You weren't here.
You didn't see it.
You wasn't either.
But you believe your guy
and I believe my son, so we're even.
Has your son ever made
a traffic infraction, you think?
- No, he has not.
- Never?
I bet we can watch him drive for five
minutes and pick out an infraction.
I bet you could.
Yeah, she is right. She's also
showing superhuman restraint there,
in the face of something
utterly enraging.
Because "I bet we could find a bullshit
reason to pull your son over"
just isn't the flex that cop seems
to think it is.
It's actually kind
of the whole problem here.
In fact, the cop who originally detained
Lea actually told him, at one point,
"We're going to stop
30 more people after you."
Showing that stop wasn't about one
bad interaction. It was a bad system,
working exactly as designed.
So, what do we do?
Well, I would argue the first thing
we should do is incredibly simple.
And that's to just stop doing
pretextual stops.
And one big step toward that would
be eliminating
non-safety-related traffic stops.
And I'm not the only one saying this.
In cities around the country, activists
have pushed for this change.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan,
this city councilwoman pushed
to reduce the use of pretextual stops,
in part out of fear for her sons,
and last year,
that law actually passed.
We are trying to set an example
about what policing could look like.
A cracked windshield,
tinted windows, loud exhaust,
broken taillight,
or expired registration or plates,
and other non-safety-related issues
would become
no longer be grounds for a stop.
Stops involving speeding,
reckless driving,
and other serious violations
would remain priority.
This frees up the police to work on
those types of primary offenses.
Exactly. The law gives police more time
to investigate actual dangerous driving,
as well as other Michigan-related
crimes,
which I have to assume are,
like, fish theft
or maybe secretly shitting in a lake.
I'm not sure what criminals do
in Michigan,
but cops could have more time to stop
whatever it is that's happening there.
And promising changes have been
implemented elsewhere, too.
A few years ago, Philadelphia became
the first major city to ban police
from stopping drivers for certain
low-level traffic violations.
And after just eight months
with the law in place,
stops associated with those violations
dropped by more than half,
meaning nearly 12,000 fewer
Black drivers were stopped.
And while that is great, it should
obviously be only the beginning here.
We should also decriminalize
minor traffic offenses
and stop locking people up
to enforce fines and fees.
Experts also told us that one major step
would be for states to require police
both keep and make public data
on all their traffic stops,
including the race of who
they're stopping,
and what actions they're taking,
to make it easier to see and address
patterns that might emerge.
And we should do that,
because it is frankly fucking incredible
that it's not already happening.
Again, I am not saying
you don't stop people
who are clearly driving dangerously.
You can, and should, do that!
But that's clearly not the only way
traffic stops are being used right now.
And doing fewer of them for bullshit
reasons should be a pretty easy sell,
if they pose a safety concern
for police officers,
let's reduce the number they have to do.
And you know what? If that just so
happens to reduce the number of cops
that we need? What
a happy accident that would be!
An accident!
An accident!
An accident!
What a happy accident!
Yes! There are so many of you!
The point is, we have to stop
the abusive practices
associated with traffic stops. It's so
obvious, even a child can see it.
A child?
Yes, well said.
And if we can do this,
then hopefully, someday in the near
future, fear of traffic stops
will be nothing but a distant,
Memory!
Exactly! That is our show,
thank you so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Get down! You're not allowed
up here! Get down!
Get off my desk! Get down!
Bad cat! Here! Have a toy!
You like that, cat?
You like it when it goes over there?
You like it when it goes over here?
Get it, cats. Over to you!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
The Southeast continued
its recovery from Helene,
port workers briefly went on strike,
and the Middle East inched closer
to all-out war,
something one local station tried
to fold into its broadcast
with mixed results.
We've got some breaking news.
Iran has launched a missile attack
against Israel.
The U.S. officially had warned Iran
earlier to not launch any missiles
or else there could be
severe consequences.
Again, we're going to continue
to gather more information
and follow this and provide that
for you as soon as we get it.
Also, switching gears here now,
today National Taco Day falls
on the first Tuesday of October.
You may not know this,
Tamara Berg recently competed
in a taco eating contest.
At Jimboy's Tacos.
You really are what you eat,
aren't you, Tamara?
Absolutely. And you guys know,
and if you follow me,
my passion runs deep for tacos.
Excellent. That is exactly
what I want from local news.
Save the globally significant events
for later!
I want to see a journalism major
with a giant taco on her head
look directly into the camera
and say, and I quote,
"my passion runs deep for tacos".
Just imagine other news delivered
that way.
From Dallas, Texas,
the flash apparently official.
President Kennedy died
at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time.
Switching gears: you probably
already knew this about me,
but I'm the biggest
hot dog hound around.
Meanwhile, it was the vice
presidential debate on Tuesday,
in this very building.
In fact, this studio served
as the post-debate spin room,
meaning that you are all breathing
in the same air particles
that were once inside
Don Jr.'s nose and mouth.
So, if anyone in this audience wakes up
tomorrow feeling
like you have a sore throat and you're
a total disappointment to your father,
that is probably why.
In contrast to the presidential debate,
Walz and Vance seemed at pains
to be courteous to one another,
something many commentators
saw as a plus.
The debate was so polite, it's being
called a night of Midwest nice.
Despite their differences,
they still managed to be civil.
It was so refreshing
to see these two guys, though.
- They were so polite to one another.
- They were, I liked it.
This was a civil debate.
It almost seemed like these
guys kind of liked each other.
In many ways, that's what the country
has been saying they want more of.
First: on the list of things America's
been saying it wants more of,
civility is at best number six,
after affordable healthcare,
gun control, cheaper housing,
reproductive rights, and starring
vehicles for Nicola Coughlan.
But also,
why do manners matter here?
The debate included discussions
on how to carry out mass deportations,
and whether women should have control
over their own bodies.
Etiquette is kind of beside the point.
It's like reading a ransom note
and going,
"This cursive is just so lovely.
Look at the capital Y in
'You have 24 hours before he dies.'
There are still some people
who were raised right."
And complimenting Vance on his
civil tone is a little hard to take,
given how he spent
the rest of his week.
Just days before the debate,
he took part in an event
called The Courage Tour,
hosted by Lance Wallnau, a prominent
far-right Christian nationalist,
and someone who's talked
about Kamala Harris like this.
She can look presidential.
We'll go to this later.
That's the seduction
of what I would say is witchcraft.
That's the manipulation of imagery
that creates an impression
contrary to the truth.
But it seduces you into seeing it.
That occult spirit I believe
is operating on her and through her.
First: Harris isn't the one who's been
relentlessly promoting witchcraft,
you're thinking
of Universal's marketing department.
And this guy clearly shouldn't
be commenting on the election.
He should be standing in a tent
in 1856
selling children mercury tonics
he claims will let them talk to ghosts.
It feels like the question that lower
banner should really be asking there is,
"Hold on,
is this wacky bitch for real?"
And it gets worse.
Because at the event in Pennsylvania,
Wallnau explained Vance had been
scheduled to be elsewhere,
but God managed to change
his plans
and you are not going to believe
the logic behind that.
As you know, we have vice presidential
candidate JD Vance coming.
And I'll be honest with you, I take
that as a direct act of God.
Because it just came together
in a certain way.
Pittsburgh wasn't even on the map, it
was supposed to be North Carolina.
And God switched it that fast,
for you.
Apparently, God made sure Helene's
floods brought JD Vance to that event.
And look, I'm not the authority
on being Christian.
I was evidently the only comedian
in the world who did not meet
the fucking pope this year.
But if you believe in a god who'd
unleash a devastating hurricane
just so JD Vance could spend
an afternoon outside Pittsburgh,
your god sounds like an asshole.
And during Vance's appearance
at the event,
he seemed more than happy
to play to the crowd.
The American education system used
to be the envy of the world.
Rich or poor alike, we believe in this
country that every person deserves
a quality education.
Well, now we've got American children
who can't add five plus five,
but they can tell you that there
are 87 different genders.
What are you talking about?
That is obviously bigoted bullshit.
If any kids are missing out
on their addition lessons,
it's for the exact same reason
they always have:
because they're way too distracted
by the class hamster.
How are kids supposed to focus
on their math worksheet
when Meatball over here is sprinting
on his wheel like he's on coke,
rolling around chaotically
in a toilet paper tube,
and panic-stuffing his cheeks with
a month's supply of carrot chunks?
He looks like Marlon Brando
in "The Godfather"
and those kids are supposed to focus
on math!? It's not happening!
But that is who Vance actually is.
And at the end of the debate, he let
a glimpse of that come through,
when the subject turned
to the last election,
and he offered this revisionist history.
Remember, he said that
on January the 6th,
the protesters ought
to protest peacefully.
And on January the 20th,
what happened?
Joe Biden became the president.
Donald Trump left the White House.
Did he lose the 2020 election?
Tim, I'm focused on the future.
That is a damning non-answer.
Yeah, it is. "I'm focused on the future"
is one of the most generic, store-brand
fuckboy deflections there is.
It's no wonder Tim Walz broke
the fourth wall there
like he was in "Abbott Elementary".
Because "I'm focused on the future"
is what you say
when you want to change the subject.
If not, you just answer the question.
I'll show you.
"John, have you ever murdered
someone?" No, I haven't.
"Have you ever been mistaken
for Penn Badgley?" No, I haven't.
"Have you ever been forcibly removed
from a Rainforest Cafe for insisting
that the frog was coming on to you?
Look, I'm focused on the future.
I'm moving forward.
And that answer was especially glaring
considering the day after the debate
a judge unsealed special prosecutor
Jack Smith's 165-page brief
in the election fraud case
against Trump,
reminding us yet again of the ridiculous
steps he took to avoid leaving office.
The brief presents the fullest picture
yet of Smith's case
that Trump knew he lost, but lied
to the American people anyway.
Prosecutors claim they spoke
to one White House staffer
who said he overheard
Trump telling family members,
"It doesn't matter if you won
or lost the election.
You still have to fight like hell."
But it super matters if you lost!
It's the main thing that matters.
That is the most unsettling thing
you could possibly overhear
if you work in the White House,
including LBJ ordering pants with
more room around his "bunghole",
real ones will know,
and Commander Biden mauling
his 78th Secret Service agent.
And while there is a lot in the filing
that we already knew,
like Trump responding after being told
Mike Pence had to be evacuated
from the Capitol with "so what?",
it also featured new details,
like Trump at one point muting
Sidney Powell
when she was outlining
her bogus fraud claims,
telling people she was "crazy".
And if I ever found out that I lied
so badly
that Donald Trump muted
the call to say,
"this is some crazy shit,"
you would never see me again.
I would walk directly into the ocean.
And none of this is theoretical.
If he loses next month,
there's every reason to believe
Trump will dispute the results again.
And Vance has made it clear
he's got no problem with that.
And that alone
should be disqualifying.
For all the talk this week
about his "civility" at the debate,
let's not forget, deep down,
he's the same colossal dipshit
who spews right-wing hate
with distressing ease,
and continues to defend the big lie
that the last election was stolen.
It is all tremendously bleak,
which is why, to borrow
a phrase I heard recently,
"I'm focused on the future."
Specifically, one in which
in four weeks' time,
Trump hopefully loses
this fucking election. And now, this.
And Now: Mika Brzezinski Would
Like Her Co-Hosts
to Please Shut the Fuck Up
About Sports.
Their quarterback did
an extraordinary job.
Let's just stop pretending
that the SEC doesn't play
on a completely different level
than everybody else.
And now let's just stop talking
about sports and do the news.
Even down two-oh tonight
at Madison Square,
it's gonna be crazy. It really is.
I'm gonna move onto other news now.
Couple of incredible games tomorrow.
Uruguay and France.
All right. I'm going to take
the furniture out of the room.
There might be a game seven,
Richard,
because that's a good team.
Mika, I swear we'll get off sports.
We'll get to more sports later.
We'll get to the news now.
No, we won't.
We just didn't have enough time
for sports. We will get back to it.
This has to put Pep Guardiola
Mika! Katty is talking about Man City
and you're reading.
I just want to ask a quick baseball
question. You're a former baseball guy.
We haven't talked about sports
yet today.
On the five-yard line, drives it.
Mika thinks, "Oh, Super Bowl".
Do you just keep going, talking
about baseball just to upset Mika?
- Yes.
- It is, isn't it?
You should just pick up your device
or read the paper
whenever they go to sports.
I clean my purse.
While we bumped in with those
New York Knicks
the last time they advanced
to the NBA's finals
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns cars,
where golf carts see themselves
in five years.
Specifically, we're going to talk
about traffic stops,
the most common law enforcement
interaction in America.
Police pull over more than
50,000 drivers on a typical day,
adding up to more than 20 million
motorists a year.
And they do so for all sorts of reasons,
from speeding,
to broken taillights,
to, spectacularly, this.
The way he came up to the truck,
I knew. "I done pissed this man off".
He's mad about something.
"You're under arrest." And I was like,
"For what? What did I do?"
The reason I pulled you over is your
derogatory sticker on the back.
- It's words.
- What do those words mean?
- It's ass, eat.
- I eat ass.
If I told you I went to jail for
a sticker? "Yeah, whatever, dude."
You're not going to believe that.
All in capital letters, "I eat ass".
Yes! Every part of that is excellent.
Very much including the "Ass me about
my First Amendment rights" T-shirt,
which is a masterclass
in personal branding.
Though, I'm just gonna say it, that guy
doesn't strike me as a real eater.
Don't get me wrong,
I'm sure he's enthusiastic.
But attentive and willing to follow
directions? Absolutely not.
But as you undoubtedly know,
not all traffic stops make the news
because they're ridiculous.
Sometimes, it's because they end
in violence.
Since 2017, police have killed at least
813 people during traffic stops,
with Black people disproportionately
impacted,
making up 29% of those killed,
despite representing only around 14%
of the population.
We've all seen the videos
of high-profile killings
like those of Philando Castile,
Daunte Wright, or Tyre Nichols.
The horror of those videos
should be seared
into our collective consciousness
by now,
so I'm not going to be playing
any of that footage tonight.
And for Black people in particular,
those incidents have highlighted
what they already know only too well,
that driving comes
with a constant undercurrent of fear.
What does it mean to drive while Black?
Driving scared. Every time you get
in your vehicle, you're scared.
Because if any cop gets behind you,
if you ask any African American,
our hearts instantly drop.
It means to drive around in fear. It
means to drive around in, also, hope.
What's the hope?
Hope that we make it home safe.
How do you think your life would be
different if you were a white dude?
For driving purposes, I wouldn't
worry every time I see a cop.
Look, there are lots of things people
have to worry about while driving.
Getting lost, getting into an accident,
getting stopped by a crosswalk
flash mob where James Corden
thrusts at your car
while dressed like a large mouse,
all real and upsetting possibilities!
But no one should also have
to worry about getting harassed
or potentially killed.
And while the incidents that give rise
to that fear often get discussed
as the result of individual
"bad apple" cops, the truth is,
they're the inevitable result
of deliberate decisions
that've turned traffic stops
into a systemic issue.
So, tonight, let's talk
about traffic stops:
the power we've given
to cops during them,
how they exercise and often abuse
that power,
and some simple ways
we can start to change all this.
And let's start by acknowledging
that police do pull people over
for completely legitimate
road safety reasons,
like dangerous speeding
or drunk driving.
And you want those people
off the roads.
You don't need me to show you a clip
about the importance of road safety,
but I'm gonna do that anyway,
because when else am I gonna have
the chance to show this?
An accident!
The humans had an accident!
There was a child in the car!
A child?
Cats have nine lives, children
only one. Help them live that life.
Buckle them into a car seat. No one
wants a child to become a memory.
That was a lot.
I'd almost forgotten all those
weird characters from "Cats",
like Anjelicasplat, Turnip,
Zazzle-Skunk,
Old Colostomy, Skeezle-Jizz,
Nipple-Twister,
and Mister Bumblefuck.
I don't remember their real names, but
I'm pretty sure that's close enough.
And let me say this,
that musical is an abomination.
If there is ever a day that
Andrew Lloyd Webber has no haters,
that means that I am dead and so,
by the way, is Patti LuPone.
But of course,
that ad is completely right.
You don't want someone
driving unsafely
to claim the life of a child,
a child, a child.
But the truth is, lots of stops
aren't about safety at all.
In fact, many are so-called
"pretextual" stops,
basically, the police using a minor
traffic violation to detain you,
while they investigate for further
evidence of crimes
like illegal guns or drugs.
And they have a lot of leeway
to do that.
Because when it comes
to searching your house,
the Fourth Amendment generally
requires police get a warrant approved
by a judge beforehand.
But when it comes to cars,
the courts decided that,
because cars can drive away,
requiring a warrant is impractical.
So, over the years, the Supreme Court's
given police wide discretion
in how a traffic stop is handled.
And in 1996, in Whren vs. the U.S.,
it fully legalized pretextual stops,
unanimously ruling
that the constitutional
reasonableness of a stop
did not depend
on the actual motivations
of the individual officers involved.
Essentially, as long as police have
evidence of a traffic violation,
however minor, they can use a simple
stop to start a criminal investigation.
And what this means in practice
is that a lot of stops now amount
to just shaking people down
to see what crimes fall out.
One of the popular manuals for training
police in traffic investigations
flat-out states, "Criminal patrol
in large part is a numbers game,"
and, "you need a lot of contacts to find
the relatively few felony offenders
you're most interested in."
One former officer has even admitted,
"We fish. If I follow a car
for five minutes,
I can always find one
or two moving violations."
And that is true. There are
so many laws on the books,
a cop can always find a reason
to pull someone over.
Experts say finding the initial reason
to pull someone over is easy.
That became quickly apparent during
an afternoon with an officer
of the Oakland,
California police department.
This Infiniti that drove by
has a bumper that's loose,
that's a vehicle code violation.
All lights must work, right?
So, his top brake light does not work.
So, I can stop him for that.
Right. And it's not just loose bumpers.
There are tons of minor infractions
on the books.
Massachusetts has a list of traffic
violations that's 25 pages long.
Florida's is 32 pages.
And in New York City,
the list is 135 pages long.
And no driver is going to be familiar
with every single rule.
No one is reading that whole thing!
Not even me, and I have resting "reads
traffic codes for pleasure" face.
And some of the laws around
the country are truly absurd.
Some states, for instance,
have laws that prohibit drivers
from hanging objects
from their rearview mirrors,
including air fresheners
and rosary beads.
Incidentally, a dangling air freshener
was a justification
for pulling over Daunte Wright.
But many officers will insist that
pretextual stops are essential
to fighting crime.
Here's a police chief explaining
why stopping someone
for having something as innocuous
as an air freshener
actually makes total sense.
So, it could seem petty to some people.
But in my 32 years in law enforcement,
I've seen many minor traffic violations
lead to big arrests.
Wanted felons, fugitives from justice,
murder suspects.
But that is still petty.
It is petty to pull someone over for not
wanting their car to smell like farts
and a yogurt that they know is back
there somewhere but cannot find.
And when pressed for evidence
of pretextual stops
being an effective crime-fighting tool,
cops will constantly bring up that this
is how a state trooper caught
Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh,
by stopping him for driving
with no license plate.
It's a case that now "holds mythic
status among police officers".
Which is a little weird because, one,
he was only caught after the bombing,
which, to be honest, feels
a little more like a miss than a hit.
And two, the reason they were able
to arrest him
is because McVeigh was carrying
a concealed weapon,
something which is not actually illegal
in Oklahoma anymore.
So, if we've all got our dicks up
for hanging on to laws
that caught Timothy McVeigh,
let's go ahead and add gun control
to that pile, shall we?
But the truth is, research has
consistently shown pretextual stops
do very little to make us safer.
A Philadelphia study found that,
out of 300,000 stops,
only .67% recovered
any sort of contraband
which could include weed
and just .17% recovered any weapons.
So, when you measure the success
rate of pretextual stops
with any metric other than "percentage
of Timothy McVeighs caught,"
they're a tremendous waste of time.
Also, for what it's worth,
in some smaller municipalities,
police aren't just looking for crimes,
they're looking for money.
There are towns around the country that
have resorted to ramping up ticketing
while enduring budgetary shortfalls.
Basically, as soon
as their balance sheet gets worse,
magically, it seems, so do the driving
skills of the people in their community.
We've talked before about the practice
of using municipal violations
to fund local government, in places
like Ferguson, Missouri
and Brookside, Alabama.
And people can still wind up being
stopped, ticketed,
and even imprisoned
for inability to pay.
Because in 17 states, minor traffic
violations are arrestable offenses
that come with a criminal record.
And even in states
where that is not the case,
people can still end up in jail
because many places can lock you up
for failure to pay fines.
Just listen to this woman
from St. Louis explain
how traffic fines can quickly spiral
into a dire situation.
How many times
have you been stopped?
I'm in St. Louis,
I don't keep count of that.
Five? 10?
Keep going. 10 was the minimum
number of times I've been locked up.
So, take that and double it. I've been
stopped no less than 20 times.
If you don't have the money to pay
the fine, you can go to court.
When you go to court,
they'll tell you court costs, ticket,
plus fees,
you now owe $300.
"Do you have $300 to pay today?"
No.
"All right, put you on a payment plan.
So, every month, come see us
and pay this by the 21st.
If not, we'll issue you a warrant
on the 22nd.
Make your payments on time."
So, let's say you don't make that
payment, you get a warrant.
So, what do you do? If you have
the resources, you can pay,
but most people
don't have the resources.
So, you just, you run.
And catch me if you can.
How many warrants did you rack up?
At one point in time, I was wanted
in 11 different municipalities.
11 different municipalities.
How did you live with that?
Carefully.
Yeah, that seems about right!
Asking, "How do you live with
11 warrants?" is a bit like asking,
"How do you hold a newborn baby?"
or, "How do you give a porcupine
a hand job?"
the answer is, fucking carefully.
And the cost of these stops
is borne overwhelmingly
by communities of color,
and particularly Black drivers.
One analysis
of a Massachusetts county found
that police pull over Black drivers
at more than twice the rate
of white drivers
for non-traffic safety violations,
like a broken taillight.
And many police departments,
even large ones, will obscure this
by simply refusing to track the racial
makeup of who they stop and search.
While others will gather the data,
but fail to connect the dots
as to what it means.
Just watch this police official
in New Jersey cite data of his own,
before having his case destroyed
with a pretty simple statistic.
I mean, I pulled our motor vehicle
stopped data by race this morning
before we did the interview
to get it in real-time.
And we're at 1,814 motor vehicle stops
for the year so far.
And 576 are Hispanic, 573 white,
and 574 African American.
So, it is pretty even across the board.
And if it ever spikes
then we'll investigate why.
Yeah, but what you just told me
is really stark
because 60% of the population
of Bloomfield is white
and only about 20% of the population
is Black.
So, how do you account for that?
Like I said before, it's basically where
our police officers are deployed.
Right! It's about where
your officers are deployed!
You are so close to figuring it out,
you just need to see
the obvious conclusion.
It's like watching a fourth grader
do a multiplication problem
on the blackboard,
get all the way to the end,
and then write the answer
"Woody Allen is innocent".
No! What? How did you get to that?
The answer's staring you in the face,
you idiot!
Racial profiling during traffic stops
is obviously nothing new,
from the Jim Crow-era South,
all the way through the '80s,
when cops were trained
using a drug courier profile,
which had them looking
for "supposedly telltale traits,
like dreadlocks and wearing
lots of gold jewelry",
which is profiling both Black people
and I guess, very occasionally,
white girls named Branch
who make their own tampons.
But she's going to be fine.
Her dad is a senator.
That was even before that Supreme
Court case that I mentioned earlier,
which raised the bar to prove cases
of racial bias.
Because to do that now,
you need to establish intent,
which is obviously hard, because
no cop is gonna explicitly admit
they pulled you over because
of your race.
And that has led courts to allow
some pretty explicit profiling.
One federal judge even rejected
claims of racial intent
after an officer justified pulling
over a Black driver by saying,
"One can never tell with you people."
And if that doesn't prove racial intent,
I'm not sure what does.
Even more recently, just listen
to the officer
who pulled over Philando Castile
for a broken taillight, by the way,
explaining on the radio beforehand,
why he was about to do that.
I'm going to stop the car.
I'm going to check IDs.
I have reason to stop it. The driver
looks more like one of our suspects
just 'cause of the wide-set nose.
Holy shit! It is hard to argue
you're not profiling someone
when you're pulling them over
because of their face's literal profile.
Castile was apparently pulled over
in and around St. Paul, Minnesota
46 times, amassing more
than $5,000 in fines.
And his mother is pretty clear
about what was happening to him.
Why do you think your son
was stopped so many times?
Because he was Black.
I mean, nobody can be that unlucky.
And nobody is that horrible of a driver.
It wasn't he ran a stop sign,
or he was in a car accident.
It's none of that. It's what
they call now pretext stops.
Yeah. She's just stating
the obvious there.
There is no other interpretation.
It's not some big unsolvable mystery
like, "What happened
to Amelia Earhart?"
Or, "Where do all your socks go
when you wash them?"
Or, "What the fuck
do these two talk about?"
Questions no one has an answer to.
I'm not saying I'm not happy
for them. I'm happy for them!
I'm saying I just don't know what their
dinner table conversation is like,
and I don't think you do, either.
But we're happy for them!
The point is: the stakes here
are incredibly high.
And infuriatingly, cops will sometimes
glibly remind drivers of that.
Just watch this interaction
between a Florida officer
and a driver he saw as uncooperative.
29-year-old Gerardson Nicholas
was on his way to work
when he was pulled over
for not wearing his seatbelt.
Let's show you how it all went down.
- Going to jail today?
- I'm going to work, man.
No, you're not going to work. You're
going to give me your driver's license.
Give me your driver's license,
registration, and insurance.
If not, you will not be going
to work today. Simple thing, man.
This is how you guys get killed out
here, man. Registration and insurance.
Say that again.
Yeah, say that again. Because there
is a lot to object to in that exchange,
but let's zero in on the passivity
of the words "get killed"
as if a shooting is going
to be something that just happens,
as opposed to an action that officer
would be choosing to take.
And one major reason why cops
may be especially jumpy during stops
is they're actively taught
to fear them.
Trainers and tactical guides often
claim that "vehicle stops account
for more killings of officers than
almost any other type of interaction."
And police training can reinforce
all of this. Just last year,
some footage came to light from
a six-day training conference for cops
held in New Jersey,
a significant portion of which focused
on traffic investigations,
and also featured
this bold motivational speech.
I love what the fuck I do for a living.
There's nothing else I'm good at.
I love violence, I love fighting,
I love shooting,
and I fucking love freedom.
It wasn't that long ago that we were
drinking out of the skulls
of our enemies.
I'm gonna fucking murder this guy
then I'm gonna take his head,
then I'm gonna cut his head in half,
and then I'm gonna boil his skull,
and then I'm gonna drink out of it.
Fucking rad, right?
Okay, a few things.
First, no, not fucking rad.
Second, I do believe you that there
is nothing else you're good at.
And least importantly,
why are you wearing a shirt
covered in elegant birds?
You're talking like
a deranged serial killer,
but dressed like you're at brunch
in West Palm Beach.
That shirt doesn't remotely match
your persona,
which, from what I can tell is "what
if someone fed Milo Ventimiglia
nothing but raw meat and trauma?"
That conference was run by a company
called Street Cop Training,
whose logo apparently features
an eagle dry-humping a police badge.
The company estimates that it trains
between 25,000 and 30,000 officers
nationwide every year.
In fact, between 2020 and 2023,
public agencies in at least 46 states
provided direct payment
to Street Cop Training.
That conference you just saw
was attended by nearly 1,000 officers
from around the country,
who, in addition to hearing speeches,
were also given what was called
a "Reasonable Suspicion
Factors Checklist,"
a list of behaviors supposedly
indicating when a driver is trying
to cover up a more serious crime.
It advises looking out for things like
"passengers on their cell phone,
usually texting" during a stop,
and "not always but often yawning."
The checklist also says it's suspicious
if a driver looks away
from the police car while passing it,
but also if they look at it,
leaving the option of closing your
eyes while driving past a police car,
which feels bad. And you know
who'd agree with that?
Those road safety freaks from "Cats".
You know, like Rumple-Weasel,
Crunkle-Butt, Jumble-Scat,
Lickety-Flop,
Jazzle-Banger, Jingle-Sphincter,
and of course, Old Tinkle-Shit.
Again, I don't remember their names,
and I'm not willing to learn.
All in all, what was taught at that
conference was so egregious,
New Jersey's Office of the State
Comptroller found
that "a number of the tactics were
both unjustifiably harassing
and unconstitutional."
And for all the fear pumped into cops,
I should note that, while it can,
of course, be a dangerous job,
studies have shown that the dangers
of stops have been vastly inflated,
with an officer's chance
of being killed during a stop
estimated at somewhere between
one in 3.6 million,
and one in six and a half million.
As one DA who's called
for police reform has said
"The risk is statistically negligible,
but existentially amplified."
And it is notable
that during certain encounters,
cops do seem able
to have less of a hair trigger.
Because while that man in Florida got
lectured for having the temerity
to talk back to an officer, just watch
this cop deal with a driver
immediately doing a lot more than that.
What do you think you're doing, pulling
me over? For blowing my horn?
Sir, go back into your car.
I'll be back in a second.
You better check the registration
on this plate soon, mister.
That guy exited the car
with full righteous bitch energy.
He delivered that line with
the conviction of Julia Roberts
in "Pretty Woman".
"Big mistake! Big! Huge!"
That guy, by the way,
was a county judge,
and when the cop found that out
after checking his registration,
this is how their interaction ended.
- Have a good day, Judge.
- You bet.
"You bet." Responding
to "have a good day" with "you bet"
instead of saying "you too"
is a level of petty self-assuredness
I will never attain.
When that man orders at a restaurant
and waiters tell him, "Good choice,"
he says, "I know".
And incidentally, you might assume
the back of his car is blacked out there
to hide his license plate,
but I'm gonna choose to believe it's
because he was proudly displaying
one of those "I Eat Ass" stickers.
Prove me wrong, Judge!
Prove me wrong!
And for Black drivers,
even when traffic stops don't result
in a shooting, or an arrest,
or even a fine,
there can still be real harm,
from the steady wear and tear that
comes from dehumanizing interactions.
Take what happened to Tae-Ahn Lea,
a teenager who, in 2018,
was driving home after grabbing
a slushy and chips at a gas station.
He was pulled over for supposedly
making too wide a turn,
subjected to questioning about
whether he had drugs in the car,
which he didn't,
and was then ordered to step outside,
where he was handcuffed and frisked,
while police searched his vehicle.
And just watch how, when a cop tries
to blame him for the stop,
Lea calls him on his bullshit.
If you don't mind me asking,
why do you have this negative view
towards the police?
What's the deal?
What's ever happened in your life
personally
where you can give me
a good explanation?
- Absolutely nothing.
- Really?
I graduated. I got a good-ass job.
I graduated with three full-ride
scholarships.
I never did shit in my life.
I've been in the house all day.
What's the problem?
Like, why are we in this situation?
You. Fucking you put me
in this situation. You pulled me over.
Yeah! Of course it's that cop's fault.
He's playing dumb while creating the
problem! It'd be like me asking you,
"Why are you
so bummed out right now?"
as if I haven't been professionally
bumming you out
for the past 25 minutes.
The cop who pulled Lea over later
testified that he believed he was armed
because of "the interaction with him and
seeing him display the nervousness,"
which is clearly ridiculous.
And thankfully, a judge later sided
with Lea,
ruling that "nervousness alone
is not a sufficient basis
on which to articulate
reasonable suspicion."
A legal rationale that experts refer
to as "a fuckin' duh".
That cop also tried to justify
his actions by mentioning
"the presence of a small souvenir
Louisville Slugger bat in the car,"
which he claimed could
have been used as a weapon.
But you should know that the bat
in question was one of these,
weighing only six ounces.
And I'm sorry, but that is not long
enough to be a weapon.
It's barely long enough to be one
of Pinocchio's nose boners.
As that stop continued,
another cop arrived,
and so did Lea's mother,
who asked him why her son
was being treated this way.
And he explained they were actually
part of a serious crime unit,
and essentially admitted
that doing bullshit traffic stops
was a key part of their job.
One of the aspects of what we do is
we focus on traffic stops, okay?
You listening to me?
Yeah, I'm listening.
Right now,
I don't want the history.
It's not history. I'm telling you what
we're doing right now, okay?
I'm trying to just let you understand,
but it's like you don't want to hear it.
- I just want to hear about my son.
- I'm getting to that.
I'm getting to that. I'm telling you
why your son is being stopped
and why he's out of the car,
but you're not allowing me to do that.
So, it's a traffic infraction
that he was stopped for. Okay?
I don't believe that, but okay.
You don't believe it. You weren't here.
You didn't see it.
You wasn't either.
But you believe your guy
and I believe my son, so we're even.
Has your son ever made
a traffic infraction, you think?
- No, he has not.
- Never?
I bet we can watch him drive for five
minutes and pick out an infraction.
I bet you could.
Yeah, she is right. She's also
showing superhuman restraint there,
in the face of something
utterly enraging.
Because "I bet we could find a bullshit
reason to pull your son over"
just isn't the flex that cop seems
to think it is.
It's actually kind
of the whole problem here.
In fact, the cop who originally detained
Lea actually told him, at one point,
"We're going to stop
30 more people after you."
Showing that stop wasn't about one
bad interaction. It was a bad system,
working exactly as designed.
So, what do we do?
Well, I would argue the first thing
we should do is incredibly simple.
And that's to just stop doing
pretextual stops.
And one big step toward that would
be eliminating
non-safety-related traffic stops.
And I'm not the only one saying this.
In cities around the country, activists
have pushed for this change.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan,
this city councilwoman pushed
to reduce the use of pretextual stops,
in part out of fear for her sons,
and last year,
that law actually passed.
We are trying to set an example
about what policing could look like.
A cracked windshield,
tinted windows, loud exhaust,
broken taillight,
or expired registration or plates,
and other non-safety-related issues
would become
no longer be grounds for a stop.
Stops involving speeding,
reckless driving,
and other serious violations
would remain priority.
This frees up the police to work on
those types of primary offenses.
Exactly. The law gives police more time
to investigate actual dangerous driving,
as well as other Michigan-related
crimes,
which I have to assume are,
like, fish theft
or maybe secretly shitting in a lake.
I'm not sure what criminals do
in Michigan,
but cops could have more time to stop
whatever it is that's happening there.
And promising changes have been
implemented elsewhere, too.
A few years ago, Philadelphia became
the first major city to ban police
from stopping drivers for certain
low-level traffic violations.
And after just eight months
with the law in place,
stops associated with those violations
dropped by more than half,
meaning nearly 12,000 fewer
Black drivers were stopped.
And while that is great, it should
obviously be only the beginning here.
We should also decriminalize
minor traffic offenses
and stop locking people up
to enforce fines and fees.
Experts also told us that one major step
would be for states to require police
both keep and make public data
on all their traffic stops,
including the race of who
they're stopping,
and what actions they're taking,
to make it easier to see and address
patterns that might emerge.
And we should do that,
because it is frankly fucking incredible
that it's not already happening.
Again, I am not saying
you don't stop people
who are clearly driving dangerously.
You can, and should, do that!
But that's clearly not the only way
traffic stops are being used right now.
And doing fewer of them for bullshit
reasons should be a pretty easy sell,
if they pose a safety concern
for police officers,
let's reduce the number they have to do.
And you know what? If that just so
happens to reduce the number of cops
that we need? What
a happy accident that would be!
An accident!
An accident!
An accident!
What a happy accident!
Yes! There are so many of you!
The point is, we have to stop
the abusive practices
associated with traffic stops. It's so
obvious, even a child can see it.
A child?
Yes, well said.
And if we can do this,
then hopefully, someday in the near
future, fear of traffic stops
will be nothing but a distant,
Memory!
Exactly! That is our show,
thank you so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Get down! You're not allowed
up here! Get down!
Get off my desk! Get down!
Bad cat! Here! Have a toy!
You like that, cat?
You like it when it goes over there?
You like it when it goes over here?
Get it, cats. Over to you!