Public Defender Says Police Body-Worn Camera Shows Evidence of Racial Bias During Traffic Stop

This past January, two San Diego police officers pulled over a Dodge Challenger on El Cajon Boulevard in the Talmadge area. The police report says the officers spotted a “plastic covering over the rear license plate” that made it difficult to read that night.

The man behind the wheel is Tommy Bonds III, and he knows Officer Ryan Cameron. According to their conversation recorded on Cameron’s body-worn camera, Bonds has been pulled over by Cameron before for the exact same reason. But Bonds has a different theory behind this traffic stop. Below is a transcript from the body-worn camera video obtained by NBC 7 Investigates.

Officer Cameron: “How ya been?”

Tommy Bonds: “Good actually. But you…you turned around cause you saw two ****** in a car probably.”

Officer Cameron: ”What’s that?”

Tommy Bonds: “I said we saw you turn around because you saw two guys, two Black guys in the car obviously.”

Officer: Cameron: “Well, part of it. The hoodie is up and stuff, just the climate and everything that’s going on in the city these days.”

Officer Cameron then goes on to say he, too gets stopped because of the way he looks.

Tommy Bonds: “You pull over white people like that? I’m not trying to be rude or nothing but...”

Officer Cameron: “Yeah, matter of fact I get pulled over out in…”

Tommy Bonds: “I mean, I just wanted to ask, cause sometimes you see ****** and you all just pull around but alright…”

Officer Cameron: “No, I get it. Cause out in east county…”

Tommy Bonds: “Well, that’s the thing, you right, you’re right, out in east county, you right, you right…”

Officer Cameron: “I’m sleeved up, they stop me all the time. If I’m wearing a snapback backwards.”

"This is race-based policing. The officer tells us that that's the way he practices. He tells us that it happens to him and there's nothing he can do about it because that's the way police in San Diego act."

Abe Genser, San Diego County Public Defender

In the minutes that follow, Bonds tells the officer that his legally owned handgun is in the car and unloaded. The officers order him and his passenger to get out of the car and handcuff them, while they look for the weapon, which is standard police practice. While handcuffed, Bonds confronts the officers over race again, but this time officer Cameron disagrees.

Officer Cameron: “It’s not that.”

Tommy Bonds: “It low-key is. But I mean that…if you saw two white boys driving down with hoodies in the car you would never have turned your [unintelligable].”

In the end, Bonds was arrested. According to the police report, the gun was just a few feet away from a loaded clip and wasn’t secured with a trigger lock. In the eyes of the law, that makes the gun a concealed weapon. Bonds doesn’t have a concealed carry license and was charged with a misdemeanor.

Bond’s public defender is Abe Genser. 

“This is race-based policing,” Genser told a judge in August. “The officer tells us that that’s the way he practices. He tells us that it happens to him and there’s nothing he can do about it because that’s the way police in San Diego act.”

During that hearing, Genser pushed for a special hearing under the recently passed California Racial Justice Act. In part, that law prohibits the state from seeking a criminal conviction or sentence if a law enforcement officer involved in the case exhibited bias because of the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin.

In court, Chief Deputy City Attorney Taylor Hearnsberger said the video doesn’t show clear evidence of racism, telling the judge, “Officer Cameron did not say that I stopped you because of your race. In response to the defendant bringing that up, officer Cameron says, “Well the hoodie’s up and everything that’s going on in this city.” That is a far cry from an unequivocal admission that that’s the reason he stopped him because of his race."

However, Judge Howard Shore sided with the defense and granted a full hearing under the Racial Justice Act which is scheduled to take place in November. It’s the first time that’s happened in San Diego County since the law went into effect in January of 2021. If the defense is successful, the concealed weapons charge would be dismissed.

NBC 7 Investigates reached out to the San Diego Police Department about this case, but a spokesperson told us they wouldn’t comment on an active case or litigation. We also asked for a comment from the San Diego City Attorney’s Office, but haven’t heard back.

California Assemblymember Ash Kalra authored the Racial Justice Act in 2020. He represents the state’s 27th district in the Bay Area. He says he wants to see more cases like this appear in state courtrooms.

“The data shows quite clearly that Black and Latinos, in particular, are pulled over and detained far more often than their white counterparts,” Kalra told us. “This is something that we as a society have to speak to because it's just not fair. It's not just and it certainly doesn't treat everyone equally under the law.”

The Racial Justice Act doesn’t require evidence like body-worn camera video to be used successfully in court. Defendants can also call on expert witness testimony or statistics to reveal bias.

“If the officer had not said those things and we're now just relying on data, then you show, okay, well how many people are pulled over for license plate covers versus how many license plate covers exist out there,” Kalra said. “And if you show that only Black men are pulled over for license plate covers, that by itself could be a case you can make as well.”

Kalra says the mention of the hoodie by the officer is also noteworthy.

“You know Mark Zuckerberg driving around in a hoodie or some tech bros up here in Silicon Valley driving around in hoodies, are they being pulled over because they're running a hoodie,” Kalra asked. “So we have to start asking these questions more deeply as to these biases that exist in many cases, in all of us.”