The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will no longer automatically prosecute charges that are related to traffic stops for violations like burned-out brake lights or expired registration tabs.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said officers often use these ‘pretext stops’ to get consent to search people’s cars, which she said studies have shown is ineffective.
“These minor moving and equipment violations are sometimes used as a pretext to stop drivers and search their vehicles, that’s why they are often referred to as ‘pretext stops,’” Moriarty said. “These stops deeply undermine community trust, which has a significant negative impact on law enforcement’s ability to investigate crime and our ability to prosecute cases.”
She said the practice disproportionately has affected Black motorists, with the 2023 U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the Minneapolis police finding that Black people were stopped by not cited or arrested at more than five times the rate of white motorists.
The county attorney’s office will still prosecute cases that arise from traffic violations where officers pull someone over for reckless and distracted driving and speeding. They’ll also consider some exceptions when cases arise from ‘pretext stops.’
Moriarty pointed to a similar policy that’s been in effect in Ramsey County since 2021.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said public safety in the county hasn’t been hurt at all by the policy, but that it’s helped build trust between police and the community as they focused instead on dangerous driving. Stops in Ramsey County fell by 86 percent after the policy was enacted, with a 66 percent decline in the number of Black drivers pulled over, although the number of firearms remained stable.
“The percentage of moving violations increased, then the non-moving violations increased,” Choi said. “That’s the North Star that I think all communities should move towards.”
Moriarty said her office’s policy aligns with both state and federal consent decrees regarding policing in the city. It also applies to suburbs in Hennepin County.
A statement from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association called the new policy “a gift to criminals and a slap in the face to law-abiding Minnesotans.”
The county attorneys were joined at a press conference announcing the new policy by Valerie Castile, the mother of Philando Castile, who was shot to death by a St. Anthony police officer after being stopped for a burned-out taillight in 2016.
“An .89 cent bulb is why my son was killed,” Castile said. “It’s something more that the police can be doing in addressing serious public safety hazards instead of looking at a mechanical issue and pulling over a car looking for something.”
The new policy will go into effect on Oct. 15.
