When police detain someone, can that person assume that he is being stopped not because of his behavior but solely because of the color of his skin? Remarkably, the answer is yes—at least according to a ruling issued last week by the Washington State Supreme Court. The decision has left police and prosecutors unsure of how to proceed but certain that it will make securing criminal convictions even harder. As one officer put it to me, “It’s almost like an institutional sanctioning of ‘you only stopped me because I’m black.’”
The ruling was the result of appeals in the case of Palla Sum, who, in April 2019, was discovered, with a friend, in a parked car in an area “known for stolen vehicles” by Pierce County sheriff’s deputy Mark Rickerson. Rickerson asked Sum and his friend for their names; when he returned to his car to check them, Sum started the vehicle, “backed up quickly, and then took off.” A high-speed chase ensued, ending when Sum crashed in someone’s front yard.
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