A 2025 report titled “Driven by Bias: An Analysis of Police Stops in Fresno” by Catalyst California in partnership with Fresno Building Healthy Communities finds that “the Fresno Police Department uses racially biased traffic stops to profile people of color, thus denying that security to a significant number of Fresno’s residents.
“This practice undermines community safety, inflicts harm on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, and wastes time and public dollars. We need a new vision of community safety and reinvestment to keep our families safe and together.”
A July Community Alliance article, “$488 a Minute to Police Fresno,” pointed out this disparity and the over-policing of BIPOC communities in Fresno, not only through traffic stops but also through enforcement of the harsh No Camping Ordinance, implemented in September 2024.
The enforcement of the ordinance has resulted in the arrests and citations of hundreds of unhoused individuals. As the Fresno point-in-time count of unhoused individuals data reveals, BIPOC communities are disproportionately represented on the streets of Fresno and ordinance violations arrests are disproportionately BIPOC community members.
In many incidents, implicit bias, attitudes that affect decisions in an unconscious manner and profiling are contributing factors to this disparity. There are some glaring examples of this over-policing and discrimination.
Who’s Getting Arrested and Harassed?
The Community Alliance previously reported on the arrest and citation of Wickey Two Hands, a 77-year-old biracial person who was targeted for arrest. He faced a year in jail and a $1,000 fine but was acquitted when City Attorney Andrew Janz failed to meet mandatory time limits to try the case.
To date, this is the only No Camping Ordinance case that has been set for trial. In an interview after his case was dismissed, Two Hands said, “I think I deserve this dismissal and want to thank my attorney, Kevin Little.” Little is a longtime civil rights attorney and advocate who represented Two Hands pro bono.
It must be noted that Two Hands does not use drugs, holds down several jobs and has lost work because of the charges.
It’s not just the targeting for arrest, it’s also the targeting for harassment and forced displacement. Tommy Thompson, a 67-year-old Black man, was being removed with others from a small encampment. He said that he had been moved four times in the last three months.
The last time he was moved, he related that “they [the Homeless Assistance Response Team, or HART] put me in a pickup, locked the doors and went over and threw all my stuff away—my tent and everything. They didn’t arrest me; they kept me in the truck until they were done throwing all my stuff away.”
He also said that no one from Poverello House or the HART outreach team came by before the raid to offer housing or shelter. He was forced to move but wasn’t sure where he would go.
Trump’s Order and Actions Are Bad, but…
People are now rightfully horrified about Trump’s executive order on homelessness and his takeover of cities, however, what Trump is proposing is only a little worse than what Fresno is doing to police BIPOC communities and to criminalize the unhoused community of Fresno.
Driven by Project 2025 and his desire for total authoritarian rule, Trump has sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and taken control of the D.C. police. He has ordered the unhoused community to “leave the city.” He is threatening forced mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment and is even threatening internment camps for homeless people.
Besides criminalizing the unhoused community, he is citing violence and “lawlessness” for his takeover even though violent crime in D.C. reached a 30-year low in 2024, and it was already down another 26% this year. First in Los Angeles, now in Washington, D.C., and next maybe in your community, Donald Trump is weaponizing law enforcement and military force against the American people.
As Hitler did, Trump is starting with the most vulnerable, the poorest among the 99%. Trump is trying to intimidate us into subservience, and he is laying the groundwork to commit violence in furtherance of his authoritarian fantasies. Throughout history, authoritarians have taken over capital cities as a way to suppress dissent and solidify their power.
Liberals Decry Trump
The liberal Democrats on the Fresno City Council decry Trump’s actions, however, the over-policing and criminalization of BIPOC communities in Fresno contributes to the Trump agenda for authoritarian rule. Ask any unhoused person in Fresno if they think it’s already a police state here. They will say “of course it is.”
Conclusion
As the Catalyst California report concludes, change must come.
“This report focuses on the harm Fresno PD perpetuates through traffic stops and the real impacts communities face as a result. Traffic stops are a starting point to profiling, detaining, harassing and harming communities of color, thus denying them the safety they deserve to thrive.
“The City of Fresno must change its approach to community safety by shifting away from an over-reliance on Fresno PD and toward equity and care-centered community safety solutions.
“Data show Fresno PD disproportionately stops and ticket[s] people of color for minor traffic violations, such as equipment or administrative issues, that do not meaningfully advance community safety. This kind of racial and identity profiling inflicts trauma and economic extraction on BIPOC communities. Fresno PD’s commitment to such unproductive practices wastes more than 200 million public dollars annually.
“The City of Fresno should end racially biased traffic stops, enhance Fresno PD’s accountability and transparency, and reinvest dollars wasted on such profiling into programs that address the root causes of community safety risks. They should also meaningfully listen to Fresno community members, who have a clear picture of what safety means to them.”
