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The Daily

Why Do So Many Traffic Stops Go Wrong?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode contains strong language and scenes of violence. Over the past five years, police officers in the United States have killed more than 400 unarmed drivers or passengers — a rate of more than one a week, a Times investigation has found. Why are such cases so common, and why is the problem so hard to fix? Guest: David D. Kirkpatrick, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernici. This is the Daily.

0:12.0

Today, a Times investigation shows that police killed 400 unarmed drivers or passengers

0:20.0

during traffic stops over the last five years.

0:24.0

I spoke to my colleague, David Cook-Patrick, about why so many traffic stops go wrong

0:30.0

and why the problem is so hard to fix.

0:41.0

It's Monday, November 1st.

0:47.0

David, where did you start this investigation?

0:50.0

Well, it started right after the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer

0:55.0

who had pulled George Floyd out of the driver's seat of a car and then killed him on the sidewalk.

1:00.0

There had been a number of other instances of unarmed drivers, mostly African Americans,

1:06.0

killed by police at vehicle stops, including Dante Wright in Minnesota.

1:10.0

There was an army lieutenant, Karen Nazario, who was pulled over in Pepperstrade in Virginia.

1:15.0

So we wanted to know, is this happening as often as it seems on armed drivers

1:20.0

going to kill the vehicle stops?

1:22.0

And if it is happening a lot, why?

1:25.0

So what did you do to answer those questions? What did you do first?

1:28.0

Well, my colleague's in investigation, Steve Eater and Kim Barker and I,

1:34.0

began with a list of 5,000 people killed by police over the last five years.

1:39.0

We got that from data put together already by the Washington Post

1:42.0

and two research organizations, mapping police violence and fatal encounters.

1:47.0

From there, we collected all the news reports and court records

1:51.0

and whenever possible, audio and video recordings of these killings that we could.

...

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