LA City Council Leader Faces Backlash Amid Hypocrisy Allegations

Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s recent traffic stop has taken an unexpected twist.

It has emerged that the Los Angeles City Council president executed an illegal U-turn on a road he has previously criticized as being among the city’s most hazardous.

Harris-Dawson faced a traffic citation on a stretch that is part of LA’s High Injury Network, notorious for frequent accidents, injuries, and fatalities.

In his own assessment, these roads are “some of the biggest killers in the city,” causing more deaths annually than gang violence, a point he has underscored in the past.

As a proponent of Vision Zero, Harris-Dawson has been instrumental in the city’s initiative to eradicate traffic fatalities through strategic street redesign, law enforcement, and focused interventions in these perilous areas.

In an opinion piece he co-authored, he starkly highlighted the issue. He explained that the city has pinpointed a “High Injury Network” where fatal accidents persistently occur and warned, “people will die in these hot spots unless we intervene.”

The solution, he argued, is design. Safer crossings, signals, and redesigned streets that account for human error.

He also underscored who pays the price. “No community is immune,” he wrote, “but the victims are disproportionately older adults, immigrants, people of color, people who live in low-income communities, people with disabilities, and children.”

Now he’s at the center of it.

Harris-Dawson told colleagues during a City Council committee meeting that he had been stopped without cause the corner of 25th and Main St and suggested the encounter was driven by racial bias, describing it as traumatic.

But officials say the stop had nothing to do with LAPD, despite the implication. According to authorities, it was Los Angeles School Police who caught him during morning drop-off near a high school.

School police say Harris-Dawson first caught an officer’s attention by driving erratically on the freeway. He then exited directly in front of the patrol car and crossed a center divider to make an illegal U-turn.

The violation carries a $238 fine, adds a point to a driver’s record and can push insurance costs higher. Authorities say it happened as students were arriving at school.

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Sources say Harris-Dawson contacted a Los Angeles Unified School District board member during the stop in an apparent effort to get out of the citation.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League blasted the council president, accusing him of pushing a misleading narrative.

“City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s attempt to influence public policy by concocting a harrowing and self-serving personal account that leaves out key facts is both unethical and a lie of omission,” a spokesman said.

“If there was an Academy Award category for fictitious stories told by elected officials, his performance would win an Oscar.”

The Post reached out to Harris-Dawson for comment on the allegations. He did not respond.