Together, Black and Hispanic people make up less than a quarter of Westwood’s population – and 27.5% of UCLA’s student body – yet more than half of the people UCPD stopped between July 2024 and July 2025 were reported to be of those ethnicities.
UCPD stopped Hispanic people – who represent 20.8% of UCLA’s total student body, including undergraduate and graduate students, and 14% of the Westwood population – in 28.7% of the recorded incidents. Officers stopped Black people – who account for 6.7% of UCLA students and 5.3% of Westwood residents – in 24% of the stops.
The percentage of Black and Hispanic people stopped by UCPD rose to 52.7% from July 2024 to June 2025 – the last full yearlong interval of available data. This range was 5% higher than July 2023 to June 2024. Those ethnicities represented 54.7% of stops between January and June 2025.
UCPD, which serves UCLA and the Westwood area, self-reports the perceived race or ethnicity of the people it stops, pursuant to California’s 2015 Racial and Identity Profiling Act. RIPA also prohibits law enforcement from profiling people on the basis of their race or identity.
The University of California Information Center publishes data on stops made for traffic violations or reasonable suspicion, as required by the 2021 UC Community Safety Plan.
Richard Mejia, the director of emergency communications and information for the Office of Campus and Community Safety, said in an emailed statement that UCLA and UCPD are committed to bias-free policing.
“We continuously review stop data and practices to identify areas for improvement,” Mejia wrote in the statement. “We take any disparities seriously and use this data to inform training, policy, and community engagement.”
Terence Keel, a professor of African American studies and human biology and society, said the data did not surprise him. He added that the criminal justice system disproportionately targeting Black and Latino men is a national trend, and he did not expect UCPD to be any different. More than 55% of people stopped by police in California in 2024 were Black or Hispanic, despite the two ethnicities making up about 46% of the population, according to the Office of the Attorney General.
“Our society in general carries a fear of Black and Latino men,” Keel said. “That fear pervades a lot of aspects of our society.”
Additionally, 80.5% and 77.2% of the Hispanic and Black people stopped, respectively, were men.
Jasmine Aner, the co-president of Afro-Latinx Connection de UCLA, said she believes UCPD’s presence on campus alone can incite fear in students coming from minority racial groups.
“They didn’t even talk to me, and I’m still scared … you don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Aner, a fourth-year political science student. “I’m always looking around.”
Aner also said the data did not surprise her. However, she added it was emotionally difficult to process the data – which she said impacted her trust in the police – because several of her family members work in law enforcement. Her brother was a sheriff, her uncle is a retired police officer and some of her cousins are training to become police officers, she said.
“It was hard seeing that reality,” Aner said. “I don’t even see them that way.”
UCPD has a Campus Safety Oversight Committee, which is independent from the police department and investigates civilian reports of officer misconduct, according to the UC Office of the President website. Keel said that a formal coalition of students and faculty should discuss UCPD crime and arrest statistics, including demographics, on a quarterly basis.
“There needs to be a reckoning – a public kind of reckoning – with what these stats mean,” Keel said.
Aner said the first steps UCPD can take to address this problem are anti-discrimination workshops for officers and open town halls where community members can question police directly about their practices.
“UCLA, UCPD should do something about this,” she said. “It all just starts with transparency, accountability and also community involvement.”
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