The Metropolitan Police Department released its 2020 stop data on Friday, following a lawsuit filed last month by the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU-DC.

Police made about 81,000 police stops between January 1 and December 31, 2020, according to a two-page summary of the data. The COVID-19 pandemic decreased the number of average weekly police stops by 43% compared to 2019.

Almost four of every five stops resulted in either a ticket or an arrest.

The  report also found that 74% of people stopped by D.C. police in the first half of 2020 were Black, very slightly up from 72% over the same period in 2019. Only about 46% of the city’s population is Black.

MPD says it plans to release a full analysis of the data in April. Meanwhile, the ACLU-DC says it is analyzing the first six months of 2020 data and plans to present its findings before the D.C. Council’s MPD Performance Oversight hearing on March 11.

“Understanding sources of that disparity so we can appropriately focus resources to solve it continues to be a top priority for Chief Contee, MPD, and the District,” the report reads. “As we strive for racial equity, harm reduction, and procedural justice in all of our interactions with the public, getting this right is critical.”

The data release comes about 2 1/2 weeks after the ACLU -DC filed a lawsuit alleging MPD had failed to meet a deadline for releasing the information. MPD had previously committed to release stop data twice a year. At the time of the lawsuit, the last time the department had done so was in March 2020.

MPD released data for the first six months of 2020 about a week after the lawsuit was filed. The full year of data came another week and a half later.

“It shouldn’t have taken a lawsuit to compel D.C. Police to follow the law, or to follow through on the promise they made to the public over a year ago, but we’re glad they finally did so with tonight’s data release,” said Megan Yan, a Liman Fellow at the ACLU-DC, in a statement emailed to DCist on Friday.

Asked to respond to the ACLU criticism that it shouldn’t have take a year for them to comply with the law, MPD said in a statement “MPD is committed to working with our community to earn the public trust in order to better serve and protect all.”

With the passage of the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act by the D.C. Council in 2016, the police department is required to collect records of all police stops, the reason for the stops, how long the stops last, and whether a search was conducted.

The ACLU-DC and other local civil rights organization repeatedly pushed MPD to overhaul its data collection system and adhere to the timeline. The ACLU-DC also conducted its own data analyses to highlight potential inequities in police practices.

This story has been updated with a response from MPD.