California county accused of profiling Asian Americans agrees to police reforms | California
Northern California, a state accused of widespread and systematic racial discrimination against Asian Americans, agreed to oversee reforms and independent oversight.
Siskiyou, a large rural county in the northernmost part of the state, has been the focus of conflicts over water rights, marijuana and police practices for years.
Illegal marijuana cultivation has been widespread in the district for a long time. Local leaders have said the industry has had disastrous effects on the environment and have argued for the better part of a decade that a subdivision in particular that is largely home to Hmong Americans bears much of the blame.
But Hmong-American residents said they were unfairly demonized and subjected to discrimination and harassment by authorities and law enforcement. Siskiyou and the sheriff’s office have faced legal action from residents since 2021 over those allegations and claims that regulations officials say they adopted to restrict marijuana have cut off their access to water.
Data obtained by the ACLU of Northern California and the Asian Law Group, groups representing the plaintiffs, found that although Asian and Pacific Islanders make up only 2.4% of Siskiyou’s population over 18, Asian drivers accounted for 28% of traffic stops by the sheriff’s office.
Some plaintiffs in the case said they were repeatedly targeted by law enforcement while driving to the grocery store or taking their children to school.
“[One plaintiff] He was subjected to an approximately 30-minute traffic stop by police, removed from the car, and questioned very aggressively about what he was doing in the area,” said Emi Young, an attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, adding that his client was pressured to search.
The plaintiff was released after the search, but was stopped at other times, including while the case was ongoing, Young said.
“This really represents what we see as open harassment of Asian American drivers simply because they fit a certain profile because of their race.”
The ACLU of Northern California announced late last month that the board of supervisors, the county’s governing body and the sheriff had reached a partial agreement. While the county has pledged to institute traffic stop reforms and stop issuing property liens to collect unpaid marijuana fines, water access claims are still in litigation.
“We see this as a very important solution,” Young said. “This is the only new case that I know of in Northern California, and the state of California more generally, that has resulted in the kind of relief we have here.”
Under the agreement, the sheriff’s office must adopt a traffic stop policy that bans race-based stops and prohibits deputies from using stops to “harass residents or pressure them to consent to searches,” the ACLU of Northern California said in a statement.
If deputies request a search, they must activate body cameras, state the reason for the stop, and provide interpreters for those who do not speak English. They cannot stop drivers simply because they are in high-crime areas or driving a vehicle with out-of-state license plates, according to the release.
The county has also agreed to independent oversight and must pay an auditor to monitor its compliance and hold community meetings annually.
Susanna Va, one of the plaintiffs, said she hopes the settlement means the county accepts the Asian community and views them as residents.
“To make us whole and to treat us the same, to see us as people who live here, not by the color of our skin or the way we look. Not just for me, but for my children and other people who want to come here and call this place their home,” she said.
Siskiyou County and the sheriff’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
