Columbia Police Department will no longer do vehicle searches based on the smell of Marijuana
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia Police Department released it's 2021 traffic data on Friday.
The report highlights the "history of controversy surrounding traffic stops" in Columbia. CPD said that "there has been... and will continue to be... a continuing effort to address bias in policing and in traffic stops."
In 2019, the Columbia Police Chief's Vehicle Stops Committee was formed, and has been looking into different variables that are "influencing traffic stops and identify areas of concern, gaps in data and policy and training issues."
The University of Missouri has been conducting its own independent study and after comparing their work with the Vehicle Stops Committee's, they have recommended that they de-emphasize odor-only searches.
In the statement, CPD says that they have already started to deemphasize odor-only searches due to the recent change in Missouri's marijuana laws saying in an effort "to ensure we are not interfering with a person's right to legally possess marijuana for medical purposes."
In 2021 the police conducted 216 searches due to the smell of drugs and alcohol. Of those stops, 147 of those stops were conducted on Black people. Drug dogs accounted for 25 odor-related searches.
To minimize the disparity, they will no longer train K9s to detect marijuana and current K9s who have already been trained will no longer warrant a search without other probable causes.
Supervisors are already required to randomly audit both in-car and body-worn camera videos. Any search where the odor was a contributing factor will be documented on body-worn cameras.
Current policies will be reviewed, and future policies will be written "to include a deemphasis on odor-alone probable cause searches." Each policy will be reviewed by the committee including the Diversity and Equity Officer.
Beginning July 1, 2022 supervisors will be required to audit all traffic stop videos where searches based on odor or consent are performed.
