LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles Police Commission updated its policy on so-called “pretextual stops” on March 1 to discipline officers—beginning with additional training—if they don’t articulate at the moment why a traffic or other minor violation escalates into a criminal investigation.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) defines a pretextual stop as one in which officers escalate a minor traffic or code violation into an investigation of a more serious crime unrelated to the initial violation.
