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The first annual report from the recently formed California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board was released last week which is the first time the state has issued a statewide report detailing California’s law enforcement agencies and complaints made against them.

While the report does not yet include “stop” data, information that will begin being collected this year detailing why people were stopped by law enforcement as well as other factors including perceptions of the officers prior to and during the stop and the ultimate result of the interaction, it does lay the groundwork for what agencies will have to provide in the future.

Data requirements are laid out in a tiered structure with the state’s largest agencies (1,000 officers or more) having to start collecting data in July. The Long Beach Police Department would fall into the second category of agencies, those with 667-999 officers, and would be required to start collecting data January 2019. The first report by the LBPD and other like-sized departments wouldn’t be due until April of 2020.

Agencies with 334-666 officers wouldn’t be required to file data until April 2022 and those with fewer than 334 officers would be required to report by 2023.

As required by Assembly Bill 953, items like the date, location and reason for the stop would have to be recorded and reported to the advisory board as well as if officers pointed a firearm at a person, whether they handcuffed a person or discovered contraband.

Perceived ethnicity of the person stopped as well as perceived age, gender, sexuality, English fluency or whether or not the person stopped was believed to have a disability are all things that will be required to be reported. The officer making the stop will also have to record their years of experience, their assignment when making the stop, all of which will be tied to the officer’s identification number which can be tracked by the state.

“The chasm of mistrust moved thousands into the street, including across California, to ultimately pass AB 953, in 2015,” said the RIPA Board’s co chair Edward Medrano who also serves as the President of the California Police Chiefs Association. “The work of the RIPA Board has been to deny the false choice of ‘us vs. them’ and find ways to collaboratively protect all Californians, providing them with dignity and respect. As Co-Chair, I invite both the public and law enforcement to lean into the opportunity we have of building trust through reform, making us all safer and more secure, regardless as to whether we’re wearing a hoodie or a uniform.”

This year’s report did include complaints made against agencies that were reported to the California Department of Justice in 2016. That data showed 514 complaints were logged against law enforcement agencies in 2016 alleging that the people stopped believed they were stopped due to some form of profiling. Of those complaints, about 70 percent believed the reason they were stopped was due to their race or ethnicity.

In a statement, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra praised the board’s work in its first report and said that its work is crucial to ensuring public safety as it works to ensure that the state gets community policing right.

“I applaud the RIPA Board on its tremendous efforts to address racial and identity profiling in California,” Becerra said. “The Board’s commitment is evident in this report. At the California Department of Justice, we are honored to have been a part of this process and to continue to lead efforts on this front.”

Jason Ruiz covers City Hall and politics for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @JasonRuiz_LB on Twitter.