AG: Police stopped blacks more than whites

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri’s top law enforcer says the disparity last year between the number of black drivers pulled over, versus motorists stopped who are white, was the highest since 2000.

Attorney General Chris Koster says the state’s African-American drivers were 75 percent more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped on Missouri’s roads based on their proportionate share of
the driving-age population.

Koster says that disparity is the highest since the data collection began in 2000.

The report is Missouri’s first released since the racial uproar that followed last August’s shooting death of a black, unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown, by a white Ferguson police officer.

Koster’s report shows that black drivers were pulled over in Ferguson at a lower rate than the statewide average.