0:01

It was just after 1 a.m. in Washington,

0:03

D.C. on a spring morning earlier this

0:06

year. A cop saw a black Lexus

0:08

SUV speed through a red light, so he

0:10

pulled the driver over. He stopped her and

0:13

said, is there a reason that we're driving like 80

0:15

miles an hour blowing red lights? This

0:17

is from his body camera footage, by the way. The

0:19

officer then notices what he thinks is

0:21

a cup of liquor in the passenger's hand, and

0:24

he explains to the driver and the passenger, look, you

0:26

can't have open liquor in a car.

0:28

That's illegal. He asks to see their IDs.

0:31

Moments after that, the driver speeds

0:34

off. What would happen next

0:36

has become the stuff of America

0:38

is falling apart canon. Coming

0:41

up on Today Explained, we tried to fix a big

0:43

problem with policing on our roads. But

0:46

when we made changes, we might have caused

0:48

another big one.

0:50

I went

0:57

to the precinct and I said,

0:59

look, I wanted to

1:01

talk about a murder that I think

1:04

happened. In 1993, Trevell

1:06

Coleman shot a man, but was never

1:08

a suspect. He kept the

1:11

secret for years and years. I've

1:13

heard of

1:13

people turning themselves in, but it's usually

1:17

soon thereafter the crime. I've never

1:19

experienced anything like someone coming forward 17

1:21

years after the fact. So no, this is absolutely

1:24

extraordinary.

1:26

Hear Trevell's story on the latest episode

1:28

of Criminal. Listen wherever

1:30

you get your podcasts.

1:44

It's Today Explained. I'm your host,

1:46

Amanda Griffith. Thanks for watching. And I'll see you next

1:48

time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

1:52

Bye. Bye. Bye.

1:55

Bye.

1:56

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

3:59

person that is dead is out there and

4:02

I'll just warm it all of the victims

4:04

deserve better

4:10

okay so this is a tragedy

4:12

it's reported at the time as a tragedy

4:16

it raises a lot of questions about the woman who was driving

4:18

that black Lexus right including had

4:20

she had a history of drinking and driving had she

4:22

had a history of being pulled over and speeding away

4:25

from cops

4:25

what do we know about her yeah so one of

4:27

the interesting things about DC driving

4:29

records is you can actually go on to the DMV

4:31

website and look up driving infractions

4:34

that have been caught on traffic cameras for

4:36

a specific car if you have the license plate number

4:38

so right away people in DC they hear

4:41

about this horrible crash and they look up the

4:43

Lexus drivers license plate number

4:45

and there is just a litany

4:48

of previous infractions caught on traffic

4:50

cameras this driver had 49 outstanding

4:53

citations on their car and owed more

4:55

than $17,000 in fines

4:58

nearly all of those fines were first speeding

5:01

and they happened most of them the vast majority

5:03

of them happened in the months directly preceding

5:06

the crash what is the name

5:07

of the woman driving the car so

5:09

we didn't immediately know which is why

5:11

I haven't mentioned her name yet we didn't know until

5:13

later in this whole process when police

5:15

announced charges in the deaths of

5:17

the three men but her name was Nikita

5:19

Walker why was the driver

5:22

Nikita Walker allowed

5:24

to drive a car if she had all of these previous

5:26

infractions what yeah it's a great question

5:29

so she shouldn't have been allowed to drive

5:31

at all so when the police finally

5:34

announced that they were charging her with

5:36

second degree murder in connection with these deaths in

5:38

May of this year court records revealed

5:40

that she had three prior DUI convictions

5:43

in DC and she had two more DUI charges

5:45

in Virginia so that's what we know

5:47

court records show MPD officers

5:49

found Walker passed out in her car

5:52

appearing drunk and smelling of alcohol in 2015 2018 and 2020

5:54

a driver that has had

5:57

Three

6:00

DUI convictions within 15 years, according

6:02

to the DMV of DC, should not

6:05

have her license, should have it revoked. What

6:07

happens in these cases is after a conviction, the

6:09

courts should report to the DMV

6:12

that this person has been convicted of a DUI and

6:14

the DMV should take her license. There

6:16

was some sort of breakdown in the communication. The courts

6:18

let the DMV know the DMV never

6:20

did anything about it. She was able to drive

6:23

with a valid license as a result.

6:25

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser was asked today

6:27

about how DC's DMV did

6:29

not know of these repeat offenses. Whatever

6:33

gaps there are, we will fill them.

6:35

And I actually think this sounds

6:38

like a technology solution and

6:41

a fix that could potentially

6:43

make us safer on the roads.

6:45

Okay, so failure to communicate

6:48

by two institutions that many people

6:50

have negative feelings about, to be frank, the courts

6:52

and the DMV. What kind of reaction was there?

6:54

Oh, it was just sheer outrage. And

6:57

I think for a lot of people in DC,

6:59

you know, this was really a turning point.

7:03

I think in some ways it

7:05

just confirmed what a lot of people in DC

7:07

already know to be true, which is that the methods

7:10

in our city of enforcing safe streets

7:12

have completely broken down. And

7:14

people drive like maniacs

7:17

as a result. I mean, I think you have probably

7:19

seen it.

7:20

Just a few days ago, I am walking

7:23

in a crosswalk where I'm supposed

7:24

to be. And these kids

7:27

in a hoopty round the corner and they

7:29

just don't stop. They truly just don't

7:31

stop. And I go diving into the bushes. I

7:34

don't know. I mean, I would like to say that's

7:36

rare and it's not that rare. Yeah,

7:38

so that is completely correct. It's not just

7:41

you. And it's unfortunately not rare. I

7:43

think anyone who has walked around has had this

7:45

experience. And I think it's

7:48

not just DC either, right? This is a national

7:50

problem. Our chopper is live over a crash

7:52

at the Ventana Apartments in Dallas. Look

7:54

at that. You can see the car rammed right into

7:57

the side of a vacant apartment. It's nice the state

7:59

patrol believes. speed may have been the

8:01

reason that a vehicle drove off

8:03

the First Avenue South Bridge in Seattle this afternoon.

8:06

The man inside that vehicle died.

8:08

That hit and run crash in northeast Philadelphia

8:11

leaving a bicyclist dead this

8:13

morning. In 2021 deaths on U.S. roads spiked 10.5% over

8:17

the year before. So that's almost 43,000 people killed on U.S. roads. And for

8:23

pedestrians it's been especially bad. Fatalities

8:26

reached a 40-year high last year. What

8:29

is this in the context of, Maren?

8:32

Yeah, so I mean a number of changes

8:34

have happened in our country during

8:36

the pandemic. And one of those

8:38

changes is that we're at this major turning

8:40

point in traffic safety enforcement across

8:42

the U.S. Across

8:44

the country many cities and states are

8:46

looking to reform old policies around

8:49

traffic stops and traffic signs and fees

8:51

which they recognize led to this system

8:53

that was very racially unjust and unfairly

8:56

punished people who were poor and

8:58

in many cases but you know all too

9:01

frequently became deadly. So across

9:03

the country we are seeing new laws

9:05

that are sort of throwing out some of these draconian

9:07

ticketing practices and limiting that

9:09

the place can pull people over for. But

9:12

the question is what happens

9:13

if we don't replace that old bad

9:15

system with something new and something

9:17

better? Lux's

9:23

Maren Cook and coming up Maren will

9:25

be back with us to talk about why we got rid of the

9:27

old system and what something new and better

9:30

might look like.

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12:10

We're back with Vox's co-generator, and when

12:12

we left off, you told us that large

12:14

cities have changed the way

12:16

they deal with traffic

12:17

enforcement. They're trying to correct for some historic

12:20

injustices, like racism

12:22

and the way people are pulled over, the way people are ticketed. But

12:25

as that has been going on, as they've been trying to correct,

12:28

traffic deaths are also going up. Where

12:31

does the story of that start? Where does the story

12:33

of, we've got to change our wicked ways begin?

12:35

Yeah, so I think

12:37

the conversation around traffic enforcement

12:40

and reforming those practices really

12:42

starts back in 2014 with the death

12:44

of Michael Brown. It starts in

12:47

Ferguson. I covered this story. How does this start

12:49

in Ferguson? On

12:52

the streets

12:53

of Ferguson, Missouri, outraged

12:55

and angry. In 2014,

12:57

a police officer shot and killed

12:59

Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager,

13:01

on a street

13:01

in Ferguson, Missouri.

13:03

And in the days following his killing, people took

13:05

to the streets

13:06

there to protest police violence against

13:08

black civilians. Your gas just dropped

13:10

right near us. It's going to get very bad here if we don't have masks.

13:13

In the wake of that unrest, the DOJ

13:16

announced that they were going to do a report into the policing

13:18

practices of law enforcement in Ferguson.

13:21

So a year later, they come out with this report, and

13:23

it confirms what basically any black resident of

13:25

Ferguson will tell you is the

13:27

case. The police were issuing traffic

13:30

tickets and fines at

13:32

the direction of the city government as a means

13:34

of generating revenue for the city's budget.

13:37

So they're basically saying, the DOJ, that

13:39

this is really discriminatory against

13:41

Ferguson's predominantly black residents, and

13:44

it's undermining public safety and trust. Ferguson

13:46

police disproportionately targeted African

13:49

Americans with 85 percent

13:51

of vehicle stops, 90 percent of

13:53

citations, and 93 percent

13:55

of arrests, even though 67 percent

13:57

of the Ferguson population

13:59

is black, people consider that they're

14:02

being taken advantage of, right? And it wasn't

14:04

just Ferguson. This is happening all across

14:06

the U.S.

14:09

So what happens after that? The Department of Justice

14:11

is involved, so

14:12

is there justice? So some

14:15

momentum for policy change after this problem

14:17

is identified starts picking up steam among

14:19

legislatures in states and cities

14:22

across the country and also among

14:24

activists who are working to reform these policies.

14:26

It's picking up steam and momentum and then

14:28

in the middle of all of this, the pandemic happens

14:31

and that just changes everything.

14:34

What happened during the pandemic? The first

14:36

big thing is that

14:37

in the immediate

14:38

sort of moments after COVID

14:41

arrives in the United States, we all

14:43

go inside, right? We're doing the whole lockdown thing.

14:45

Right now, the coronavirus is keeping most

14:47

people off Bay Area freeways, but

14:50

those wide open lanes are feeding

14:52

some drivers need for speed.

14:55

And the police are thinking about, okay,

14:57

what are we going to do here? Interacting with

14:59

the public is a health safety risk

15:01

to our police departments, but also to

15:04

the general public. So across

15:06

the country, these different police departments are grappling

15:08

with, can we reduce enforcement

15:10

in all these different areas to reduce

15:13

risk? So that's the first few months of the

15:15

pandemic. And then of course,

15:16

George Floyd is killed. George Floyd

15:19

murdered by a police officer, right? A big story,

15:21

something we're all aware of,

15:23

but it wasn't a traffic stop. So how

15:26

does that affect traffic policing?

15:28

No, great question. Okay. So I should say

15:31

first, these conversations had been ongoing for

15:33

years. This is something that I know you know, right?

15:35

The police had been under scrutiny for too

15:37

many instances of police brutality that

15:40

were caught on tape, caught on camera.

15:42

So we'd been having this conversation for

15:44

years and the police were already under scrutiny. And

15:47

then George Floyd happened

15:49

and there was this massive response, right? It was almost

15:51

like a breaking point where the country said enough,

15:54

enough. And in response to that, since

15:57

so many of these incidents of police

15:59

brutality, had started with

16:01

traffic stops, right? The police simply

16:04

begin dramatically drawing back

16:06

the number

16:06

of traffic stops they're doing. According

16:09

to a 2021 survey of over 1,000 police officers, nearly 60%

16:13

said they were less likely to stop

16:15

a vehicle for violating traffic laws than they were

16:17

prior to 2020.

16:19

So it's not just that. I mean, the

16:21

survey actually lines up with the data

16:23

that is reported by different cities and states. In

16:25

San Diego, police stops dropped

16:27

by like 50% between 2019 and 2022,

16:30

40% in Vermont in 2020. In

16:35

Seattle, traffic citations dropped 86%

16:39

between 2019 and 2023. In

16:41

St. Louis, Missouri, the police issued

16:44

half as many tickets in 2021 as they did in 2009.

16:46

So it's happening all over the country. And meanwhile,

16:49

in St. Louis, for example, traffic deaths

16:52

doubled during that same time period. In

16:54

Austin, the number of traffic citations dropped 90%

16:57

between 2017 and 2021.

16:59

And at the same time, the traffic deaths

17:01

reached record highs. So

17:06

it's not

17:06

to say that one is necessarily causing

17:08

the other because correlation does not equal causation,

17:10

right? But clearly something

17:12

is going on here.

17:14

Right, so something's going on. And also, even

17:17

if correlation does not equal causation,

17:19

we know for a fact that the police are less engaged

17:22

with traffic enforcement than they used to be. We

17:24

started realizing this in 2020 and after, and

17:27

also at the same time, traffic deaths

17:29

go up.

17:31

Since traffic deaths are going up, why

17:33

don't the police become more

17:34

involved with traffic enforcement again? I

17:37

mean, I think there are a number of reasons for this.

17:39

And it's really hard to say for

17:41

sure definitively

17:42

that it's any one thing when there are so

17:44

many different jurisdictions and so many different departments

17:46

across the country. I mean, part of it

17:49

is that there is now this massive staffing shortage

17:51

in many police departments across

17:54

the US. An NBC News analysis of

17:56

FBI data shows officer counts

17:58

fell 2.3%.

19:59

Changes like that are good,

20:01

but there are some considerations that

20:03

are getting overlooked in the process. So for

20:05

example, fake tags are a huge

20:07

problem in Washington, D.C. and in

20:09

New York and in many other cities. And

20:12

I'm sure you have seen the fake tags.

20:14

They're like little paper license

20:16

plates that are basically stuck to the back of cars instead

20:18

of the real metal plate. Yeah,

20:20

they're everywhere. Okay, and they're everywhere for a reason.

20:23

You can go on to Facebook

20:25

Marketplace, Craigslist, whatever, and buy

20:27

these fake tags and put them on your car. And

20:30

basically it means that traffic cameras can't

20:32

trace

20:33

the vehicle back to you if you're calling on camera, breaking

20:35

a law. The NYPD citing these two

20:37

gangland type shootings that happened in Brooklyn

20:39

and late last year in Grand Prairie, Texas,

20:42

a manhunt for a suspect that police say was responsible

20:45

for the death of an officer, was made harder because

20:47

of the use of a

20:48

phony paper tag. D.C. briefly

20:51

considered cracking down on these, but decided

20:53

not to. And it was purportedly because they were concerned

20:56

that it would have a disproportionate

20:58

impact on black and brown drivers. So

21:01

basically they took this concern about equity

21:04

and they used it to not crack down on this problem

21:06

of fake plates. But the problem with that is

21:08

like we still have these incredibly high

21:10

numbers of deaths. And by the way, like

21:12

the people who die in traffic accidents

21:15

or crashes, the people who are killed,

21:17

whether in car or as

21:19

pedestrians are disproportionately black,

21:22

Hispanic and indigenous people too. So

21:24

clearly the old system was not working and

21:26

these reforms are needed to create a

21:29

more equitable system. But what we really

21:31

need at this point as traffic fatalities are

21:33

soaring is a new system that

21:35

truly prioritizes safety. And

21:37

I don't think many

21:38

cities are doing a good job with that right now.

21:41

What would a system that

21:42

truly prioritizes safety actually look

21:44

like? What would need to happen? There are so many

21:46

different things we could be doing better

21:48

than we are right now. One

21:50

thing is just using the data from traffic cameras

21:52

better, right? So the DC

21:54

government had all of this information that this driver,

21:57

Nikita Walker of the Black Lexus,

22:00

was a danger to those around her, right?

22:02

They had repeated

22:03

infractions caught on camera in the months before

22:05

the crash.

22:06

And the data is pretty clear that if you get

22:08

these infractions, if you're speeding

22:10

and driving recklessly, repeatedly, you are

22:12

very likely to get into a fatal accident

22:14

at some point in the near future. Governments should be

22:16

able to find those people

22:17

and boot their vehicles before they

22:20

kill someone.

22:20

Another thing is traffic cameras. They're super

22:23

controversial in the US. They are often

22:25

accused of being put in majority black

22:28

neighborhoods to trap people and

22:30

to ticket them more and to use that

22:32

to fund city governments. In many

22:34

cities and countries in Europe, you

22:37

can't drive super recklessly because there are so many

22:39

traffic cameras everywhere, no matter the neighborhood,

22:41

that you will just get caught doing it. So

22:43

I think in the US, we could put up more traffic

22:46

cameras, distribute them more equally across

22:48

neighborhoods. And then this is a really, really

22:50

big one.

22:50

And this is something DC isn't doing but should be

22:52

doing, and many other cities should be doing. Rather

22:55

than funding city governments with that money, use

22:58

the funds raised by those cameras to directly

23:00

invest in safe infrastructure in those communities.

23:03

No one loves getting

23:04

a traffic ticket. This

23:06

is never going to be a fun thing. It's always going to be a little bit

23:08

like going

23:09

to the dentist. But the public should at least know

23:11

that the money that they are paying

23:13

because they drove a little too fast or ran a

23:15

red light is going to fund a crosswalk

23:18

in that neighborhood. It's going to go to make those

23:20

communities safer. Another thing I think

23:22

we could do, you could use fees

23:24

that are tied to someone's income. So

23:27

in many Scandinavian countries, they have a

23:29

day's wage fees. So it's based on

23:31

your income, and it's a day of your wages. So

23:34

that's a little bit more proportionate. And

23:36

it really speaks to where someone is at

23:38

financially rather than just giving

23:39

everyone the same fee. In short,

23:41

there are like a million things we could do.

23:44

But the priority should just be get the most dangerous

23:46

drivers off the road and don't unfairly

23:49

punish everyone else.

23:54

Merin, everything you've just said makes

23:56

a lot of sense. As usual, the Scandinavians

23:59

are doing it right, but these

24:02

things are not likely to translate

24:04

to the United States. They often just don't.

24:07

And I wonder, as you're doing this research

24:10

and looking for solutions, do

24:13

you begin to get the sense that there

24:15

is no solution to what's going

24:17

wrong in the United States with our focus

24:20

on freedom and our inherent racism

24:22

and all of the other stuff that plays in here? Is

24:25

it unreasonable maybe to even ask for solutions?

24:27

No.

24:28

I so adamantly

24:31

think the answer to that is no. I think such

24:33

a part of the problem is that we

24:36

are so inured in this country.

24:38

We think that this level of death is normal.

24:40

And this is why I'm on such a soapbox about this.

24:43

It is not normal. People

24:45

want to say, oh, well, it's the US. It's

24:47

different from Western Europe. OK,

24:49

but the deaths are way lower in Canada.

24:52

They're way lower in Australia. Those

24:55

are both big wide open places with big wide

24:57

open roads. They do not have the levels of

24:59

fatalities that we do. A

25:01

big, big problem with this issue now is

25:03

that people just take it for

25:06

granted. Like, it's normal because

25:08

we're so used to it. But it's really not normal. I

25:11

think if there's any takeaway I want

25:13

people to have from my coverage of this

25:15

stuff, it's just we don't have to live

25:17

this way and

25:18

we don't have to die this way. But we do have

25:20

to care about it for it to change. I

25:23

was Lord Sismarring Cokin. Today's show was produced

25:27

by Miles Bryan and edited by Miranda

25:30

Kennedy. It

25:32

was smack checked by Amanda Llewellyn and engineered by

25:34

Patrick Boyd. I'm

25:40

Noelle King. It's today. Thank you.

26:00

you