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Pennsylvania troopers stop drivers at similar rates no matter their race or ethnicity, study finds

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Pennsylvania troopers stop drivers at similar rates no matter their race or ethnicity, study finds


HERSHEY, Pa. — Pennsylvania drivers were pulled over and cited by state police last year at roughly comparable rates for various races and ethnicities, according to information about 450,000 vehicle stops that was made public on Wednesday.

“The findings across multiple analyses demonstrated no substantive racial and ethnic differences in the initial reason for the stop by the Pennsylvania State Police,” Robin Engel, a researcher now at Ohio State, said in releasing the $194,000 study at the state police academy in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Researchers also found that trooper decisions about how to enforce the law after they stop someone are most strongly based on legal factors and not the drivers’ or troopers’ race or ethnicity.

However, troopers in the field were slightly more likely to engage in “discretionary” searches of Black drivers’ vehicles than those of white or Latino drivers when the drivers’ criminal histories were factored in, the report said.

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Troopers do not ask drivers their race or ethnicity but record that information based on their subjective perceptions.

The state police and the American Civil Liberties Union in Pennsylvania two years ago agreed to settle a federal civil rights complaint alleging that seven troopers targeted Latino drivers for vehicle stops and detained them to check their immigration status. The 10 people who sued, all Latino, said troopers demanded “papers” from drivers and passengers.

To settle the case, the Pennsylvania State Police enacted a regulation prohibiting troopers from stopping anyone based on immigration status, citizenship or nationality, and stopping them from questioning people about their immigration status unless answers are needed for a criminal investigation unrelated to civil immigration laws.

The new report on traffic stops echoed last year’s findings that racial and ethnic disparities in Pennsylvania State Police traffic stops have become rare, likely because of increased scrutiny and supervision in the field. Authorities have also changed training tactics and prioritized treating people equally.

In an effort to make their work more transparent, state police have also been expanding the use of body cameras. Nearly half the force is now equipped to wear them.

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Wider information about Pennsylvania traffic stops may soon become available. A law passed by the Legislature in May mandates other local police departments that serve populations of at least 5,000 people also must collect and make public traffic stop data. The measure takes effect at the end of next year.

Rep. Napoleon Nelson, D-Montgomery, chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, called the newly released data “neither comforting nor extremely surprising.” He said the study will be closely reviewed and that information from smaller departments is needed to form a full picture.

“We don’t know the regional differences in statistical analyses yet, we haven’t seen that,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot we don’t know.”

A review of nearly 4.6 million vehicle and pedestrian stops by 535 California law enforcement agencies in 2022 found that Black people accounted for nearly 13% of traffic stops in that state, where they make up about 5% of the total population. A 2022 study in Massachusetts found no evidence of racial disparity in the decision to pull over drivers, but Hispanic and Black motorists were more likely than white drivers to be cited and white drivers more likely to get off with a just a warning.

In Missouri, a 2018 review concluded African-American drivers were 85% more likely to be pulled over than whites and that white motorists were less likely to be searched than Black, Hispanic and American Indian people but more likely to be caught with contraband. The report also concluded that 7.1% of Hispanics and 6.6% of Black people were arrested after stops, compared to 4.2% of whites.

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Suspect arrested for shooting near basketball court in Elkins Park, Pa.

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Suspect arrested for shooting near basketball court in Elkins Park, Pa.


ABINGTON TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — Police have arrested a suspect who they say fired shots at a vehicle near a crowded basketball court in Montgomery County.

Jamell Whitmore, 18, of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, was arrested on Thursday.

The shooting happened on March 22 near a basketball court on the 300 block of Cadwalader Avenue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

Shooting near Elkins Park basketball courts sends stray bullet into home

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Police said multiple callers reported hearing gunfire around 8:15 p.m. and witnessed a large group of people run from the area behind the McKinley Firehouse.

As a vehicle drove by, one of the men in the group, identified by police as Whitmore, ran off to the parking lot to retrieve a gun and began firing multiple shots towards the vehicle.

Police say it’s unclear if the vehicle was hit, but one of the bullets struck a nearby home.

No one in the home was injured.

Police said no innocent bystanders or those involved in the shooting were injured.

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The motive for the shooting remains unknown.

Copyright © 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.



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Pennsylvania-born indie rockers Tigers Jaw return with new album release

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Pennsylvania-born indie rockers Tigers Jaw return with new album release


The chorus for the song “Primary Colors” was something Walsh wrote years ago, with the song’s outro originally being used as a verse.

“And something just wasn’t quite clicking, and everything that I tried felt kind of forced,” Walsh said. “We were all just like, ‘Yeah, there’s something here, but it’s not quite doing what I think it has the potential to do.’”

The band then started toying with the dynamics between the verses and the chorus.

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“It just unlocked something for me in the idea where I was like, ‘Wow, this kind of quiet, loud, quiet, loud format really works well with this song,’” Walsh said. “So yeah, it just transformed it instantly into an idea that felt a lot stronger.”

The album was recorded with Grammy-winning producer Will Yip, a relationship still budding from their 2014 album, “Charmer.” Collins said the new album’s sound is “as true as we could be to playing the record live.”

“I wasn’t as tied to the tones that have classically been Tigers Jaw because I think at this point, I’ve just come to this realization that no matter what, if we’re making it, it is Tigers Jaw,” Collins said.

The new album has a “palpable energy” that shares the same spirit as their earlier records, Walsh said. And while “tastes evolve,” the band followed “what feels good.”

“This is the best representation of the band at the time, and it’s almost like a snapshot of us as artists, as people, as a creative entity over this time in our career,” he said.

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“Lost On You” is out now through Hopeless Records and is available on vinyl, CD and various streaming platforms.

“Lost On You” was released on March 27, 2026, through Hopeless Records. The album is available on vinyl, CD and various streaming platforms.

On April 16, Tigers Jaw will perform at Union Transfer at 8 p.m. They will be supported by Hot Flash Heat Wave and Creeks, the solo project of Balance and Composure vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons, who is from Doylestown, Pennsylvania.





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Pennsylvania court upends mandatory use of life-without-parole for second-degree murder

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Pennsylvania court upends mandatory use of life-without-parole for second-degree murder


What to Know

  • Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court says the state cannot automatically give life without parole for felony murder without weighing each defendant’s culpability in the killing.
  • The high court on Thursday ordered a new sentencing hearing for Derek Lee over a second-degree conviction, but paused it for four months to give state lawmakers time to consider legislation in response.
  • Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death. Life with no possibility of parole has been the only possible sentence.
  • The court says the current rule treats a lookout the same as the person who kills.

Pennsylvania’s high court on Thursday overturned the use of automatic life sentences without parole for people convicted of second-degree murder, saying it violates the state’s constitutional ban on cruel punishment when imposed without a closer look at the defendant’s specific role and culpability.

The court majority ordered resentencing in the case of Derek Lee, convicted of a 2014 killing in Pittsburgh, but the decision also has implications for others among the roughly 1,000 other inmates currently serving similar second-degree murder sentences.

The court’s order was put on hold for four months to give the General Assembly time to “consider appropriate remedial measures.” In a footnote, the justices said they were ruling on Lee’s sentence and not addressing “questions of retroactivity.”

Prison reform groups hailed it as a landmark decision, while the Allegheny County district attorney’s office said it will follow the court’s order.

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Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death, and life without parole has been the only possible sentence.

“The mandatory penalty scheme of life without parole for all offenders convicted of second degree murder fails to assess individual culpability regarding the intent to kill, and mandates the same punishment regardless of that culpability,” wrote Chief Justice Debra Todd in the lead opinion. She characterized it as not distinguishing “between the lookout, and the killer who pulls the trigger.”

The state high court’s decision comes after years of advocacy to undo mandatory life without parole sentences both in Pennsylvania and nationally. Nazgol Ghandnoosh of the Washington-based Sentencing Project said she counts 11 states and the federal system as having such laws for that kind of crime, sometimes called felony murder. Several states — California, Colorado and Minnesota — have moved away from that sentencing framework in recent years, she said.

Justice Kevin Dougherty noted in a separate opinion that unlike those convicted of first-degree murder, defendants serving life without parole for second-degree murder have “never been found by a judge or jury to have harbored the specific intent to kill” and may not have had “any involvement whatsoever with the actual killing. He or she does not even have to expect or foresee that a life may be taken.”

Lee’s lawyers had wanted the court to rule that life without parole sentences are unconstitutional for all second-degree murder convictions in Pennsylvania, said Quinn Cozzens, a staff attorney for the Abolitionist Law Center, which helped represent Lee. Instead, the court ruled that trial judges must examine the individual circumstances of a defendant’s case to decide which sentence is most appropriate, including the potential of life without parole.

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The state’s public defenders’ association said the ruling will generate new post-conviction litigation and require them to do more investigation as well as develop “strategic litigation” to get the decision to apply retroactively.

A jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder in 44-year-old Leonard Butler’s shooting death. Butler was shot in a struggle over a gun with Lee’s codefendant, Paul Durham.

Prosecutors argued it should be up to state lawmakers and the executive branch to address the policy issues surrounding second-degree murder sentences. Todd wrote that while the district attorney’s office “acknowledges that there may be persuasive arguments why a non-slayer should not be held to the same degree of culpability as the slayer, it stresses that these are policy decisions for the General Assembly.”

Cozzens urged lawmakers to “address this constitutional violation, given that the court granted them the opportunity to do so.”

Rep. Tim Briggs, a suburban Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the state House Judiciary Committee, said he planned to engage with Senate Republicans on potential legislation in response.

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Briggs said he wanted to have decision apply retroactively, to give people serving life “for being the getaway driver” to “have the opportunity to have their facts looked at again.”

“I think inaction leaves a lot of this up to the courts to decide. I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” Briggs said. “We have a policymaking role here.”

Justice Sallie Mundy wrote that Lee “willingly participated in an armed home invasion and robbery, and purposefully engaged in assaultive behavior in the form of tasing and pistol-whipping the victim.” She said Lee and Durham “arguably kidnapped the victims by forcing them into the basement” and it will be up to the county judge to decide if Lee’s life-without-parole sentence is appropriate.

Todd’s opinion, citing an advocacy group, said 73% of those convicted of felony murder in Pennsylvania were 25 or younger when the killing occurred and almost 70% are Black people.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also responded to the ruling on X.

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