CNN Special Report S2022E02 - Traffic Stop: Dangerous Encounters

CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner explores traffic stops and the psychological, social, and financial trauma they cause Black drivers who get caught up in a system fraught with racial bias. The disturbing images of unarmed Black men killed during traffic stops and the names that go with those images: Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, Walter Scott, and more dot the canvas of a system that does not treat Black drivers the same as White drivers. According to a study from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Black drivers are twice as likely as White drivers to be pulled over and four times as likely to be searched. This extreme disparity is difficult to explain with legitimate law enforcement objectives. Indeed, the data show that contraband is found less often on Black drivers than on White drivers.
Sidner examines the major reforms taking place by cities and police departments and the push back from police unions who warn crime will rise because of them. She talks to the Police Chief of Oakland, California, the Police Commissioner of Philadelphia, as well as Katie Bryant, Daunte Wright's mother, and Valerie Castile, Philando Castile's mother. Sidner learns how a seemingly mechanical system engineered to manage and limit the dangers of automobile usage—speeding, drunk driving, etc.—has turned into a mechanism that unfairly targets and traumatizes Black drivers.