Matt Davis just called from today’s meeting of the city’s Racial Profiling Committee with a bit of news: Police Chief Rosie Sizer announced new stats related to 2006 traffic stops. It’s raw data—Sizer stressed that she didn’t know why the stats look like they do, or what they mean—but there were a few interesting points.

For starters, cops made 15 percent fewer stops in 2006—the year the racial profiling listening sessions were going on. In 2004 and 2005, cops made close to 80,000 stops each year (80,073 and 79,419, to be precise). But last year, that number dropped by about 12,000 stops—to 68,107.

Again, it’s raw data, but it begs the question: With racial profiling such a hot topic in 2006, did cops hesitate to pull people over? Are cops de-policing?

I’ve got a call in to the cops to see if there’s a really basic explanation for the drop in stops, like a shrunken traffic enforcement division.

While that drop in stops meant that everyone was pulled over less, white drivers got off even easier: Sixty-six percent of drivers pulled over in 2006 were white, a drop from 68 percent in 2005 and 70 percent in 2004. Matt told me that minorities made up 13 percent of stops in ‘04 and ‘05, but increased to 14 percent in 2006. (I realize now that I’ve hung up with Matt that 14 + 66 does not equal 100 percent. Either the 14 percent figure refers to a specific group, or in the remaining 20 percent of stops, the driver’s race wasn’t recorded. We’ll nail that down when Matt returns to the office.)

Finally, the data showed that Latinos were more likely to be searched after a stop in 2006 than they were in years past. Last year, 10 percent of Latinos stopped were searched, up from 8 percent in ‘05, and 6 percent in ‘04. Jo Ann Bowman, co-chair of the Racial Profiling Committee (with Sizer), noted that the uptick was significant.