Issues with Traffic Stops in Spartanburg

Spartanburg County, South Carolina, is under scrutiny following the launch of Operation Shakedown, which investigates aggressive traffic enforcement tactics and property seizures. The Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, has sought access to incident reports from 144 vehicle searches conducted during a joint operation involving multiple law enforcement agencies, including local sheriff's offices and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The findings from a previous operation, Operation Rolling Thunder in 2022, revealed that over 72 percent of vehicle searches yielded no illegal findings. Despite the legality of carrying cash, officers frequently treated it as contraband, seizing it without justification. Notably, the records indicate that there was no documented instance where officers found a significant amount of cash without seizing it, raising concerns about the legitimacy of these actions. Demographic data from the operation highlights a troubling trend, with nearly 74 percent of identified suspects and 75 percent of arrests involving Black individuals, a figure significantly disproportionate to the county's Black population of 25 percent. This raises questions about potential racial profiling and systemic bias within the enforcement practices. Moreover, the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office has a policy of not documenting every search, only recording instances where contraband is found. Consequently, there are no records for 102 of the 144 searches, leaving a gap in accountability and transparency. The lack of documentation prevents public scrutiny of the probable cause for searches that yielded no results, effectively erasing these incidents from official records.