LA City Council president faces scrutiny as police union pushes probe over traffic stop

The top police union in Los Angeles is calling for a formal investigation into claims by the president of the City Council that he was pulled over for being black — despite details emerging that he had actually been stopped for driving recklessly in a school zone.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League is calling for a probe Marqueece Harris-Dawson, 56, raising questions about whether he tried to use his position to avoid a traffic citation, and whether outside contacts played a role.

In a letter sent Thursday morning to City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto and the LA District Attorney’s Office, LAPPL President Ricky Mendoza pointed to what he described as a “disturbing picture” surrounding the March 4 traffic stop near an LA high school during morning drop-off.

Harris-Dawson was pulled over by an LA School Police officer for a moving violation, but instead of accepting the citation, he allegedly tried to get out of the ticket by contacting a school board member.

“News reports indicate that… Mr. Harris-Dawson contacted a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education ‘in an apparent effort to get out of the citation,’” Mendoza wrote.

“If this is true, the public deserves to know which school board member Mr. Harris-Dawson called, what was said … and if the officers involved were contacted,” the letter states.

The note requests a “thorough and transparent investigation” to determine whether any laws were broken or whether the public trust was compromised.

Two days after the traffic stop, the council president told colleagues he had been pulled over without cause and suggested the encounter was racially motivated, describing it as a traumatic experience and citing “grossly racially biased” traffic stops in LA.

But officials revealed the stop was carried out not by the LAPD but LA School Police and was tied to a traffic violation in a school zone.

According to law enforcement sources, Harris-Dawson was stopped during morning drop-off after allegedly driving erratically, exiting in front of a patrol car and crossing a center divider to make an illegal U-turn.

The incident occurred near a school as children were arriving.

A senior source confirmed Harris-Dawson contacted an LA Unified School District board member during the stop, a detail central to the union’s request for further review.

Union officials have been sharply critical of how the incident was publicly characterized, arguing key facts were left out as the story was used to weigh in on broader policy debates over traffic stops.

In a statement, a union spokesman called the account “self-serving” and incomplete, urging authorities to “get to the bottom” of what he described as an “unethical and sordid episode.”

The controversy comes as the City Council prepares to vote next week on limiting so-called pretextual traffic stops.

The Post had reached out to Harris-Dawson several times for comment.

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