Los Angeles police officers see the world in black and white, a recent report by Yale Law School economist and law professor Ian Ayres, commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, reveals.

Statistics have shown that African Americans and Hispanics were twice as likely to be ordered out of their vehicles than whites, but the same racial disparities seemed smaller when they involved African American officers.

Furthermore, although African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be frisked, officers were also less likely to find evidence during the searches. According to Ayres, it is implausible that the higher frisk and search rates were justified by higher minority criminality, since these searches are less likely to uncover incriminating evidence.

“The results of this study raise grave concerns that African Americans and Hispanics are over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched and over-arrested,” Ayres writes. “These dark statistics give a numeric lens for the lived experience of “driving while black” or “driving while Hispanic.”

Ayres’ report was based on an LAPD report released in 2006, which included 810,000 reports completed by LAPD officers between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004, almost every time they stopped a vehicle or pedestrian.

At the time, there didn’t seem to be any racial disparities in LAPD officers’ behavior, however, while closely re-examining the data, Ayres found that in fact, these disparities existed. For example, individual police officers who arrested disproportionally more African Americans also arrested disproportionally more Hispanics.

According to ACLU/SC, while the LAPD has made certain revisions to its protocol of racial profiling investigations, they also need to take further steps, including giving the civilian Inspector General real-time oversight of racial profiling complaint investigations, as well as the power to send them back to the department for improvements, if necessary.