§ 22-4609 Profiling prohibited as basis for making stop, search or arrest.

Police cannot use a person's race or other personal traits like ethnicity as the reason to stop, search, or arrest them. This means an officer cannot decide someone looks suspicious just because of their race, and use that as grounds for probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

This rule applies at every stage of a police encounter. It covers the decision to pull someone over or stop them on the street, the decision to detain them longer for questioning, and the decision to search their body, car, or belongings. In all these situations, officers must have real, specific reasons tied to actual behavior or evidence, not assumptions based on a person's background.

If police break this rule, any stop, search, or arrest based on biased profiling is not legally justified. This protects people from being targeted by law enforcement simply because of who they are rather than what they have done.