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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021 05-08 CCP SpecialCouncil Special M eeting V I RT UA L meeting being conducted by electronic means in accordance with Minnesota S tatutes, section 13D.021 P ublic portion available for connection via telephone Dial: 1-312-626- 6799 Meeting I D: 95897796340# Passcode: 05082021# May 8, 2021 AGE NDA 1.Call to Order The City Council requests that attendees turn off cell phones and pagers during the meeting. A copy of the full City C ounc il packet is available to the public . The packet ring binder is loc ated at the entrance of the council chambers. 2.Roll Call 3.Discussion on Public Safety A.T imeline of meeting B.Proposed Resolution C.Testimony 4.Adjourn 1 Barbara Suciu From:Mayor Mike Elliott Sent:Friday, May 7, 2021 4:45 PM To:Barbara Suciu Cc:BC City Council; Reggie Edwards Subject:Agenda for Saturday Hi Barb,    Here’s the detailed agenda for tomorrow’s meeting.      Agenda -   4:00pm - 4:30pm Intro and Presentation on Resolution (powerpoint+graphics)  4:30pm - 5:00pm Expert testimony and Q&A    4:30-4:40pm Assistant Chief Tom Thompson (Ret.)  4:40-4:50pm Dr. Maria Ponomarenko  4:50-5:00pm Dr. Jordan Blair Woods 5:00pm - 5:45pm Community testimony, including families of Daunte & Kobe   5:45pm - 6:00pm Discussion     Best,  Mayor Mike Elliott  City of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota   Office: 763‐569‐3449  6301 Shingle Creek Pkwy, Brooklyn Center MN 55430  www.cityofbrooklyncenter.org  Member ____ introduced the following resolution and moved its adoption: RESOLUTION NO. ___ THE DAUNTE WRIGHT AND KOBE DIMOCK-HEISLER COMMUNITY SAFETY AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION RESOLUTION WHEREAS, the City of Brooklyn Center can create a safer, healthier, more just, and more thriving community by promoting a diversity of responses to our community’s safety needs that do not rely solely on our armed law enforcement officers; WHEREAS, many approaches proven to be safe and effective for responding to non-moving traffic offenses, low-level violations, to people with mental health needs or disabilities, and to other similar situations, do not involve armed law enforcement officers; WHEREAS, creating alternative responses in these situations will allow our law enforcement officers to focus their time, training and expertise on serious threats to the immediate safety of our residents, WHEREAS, relying on our armed law enforcement officers as first responders in these situations has in some circumstances resulted in unnecessary escalation, harm, and a tragic and avoidable loss of life for our residents, including the lives of Daunte Wright and Kobe Drimock-Heisler; WHEREAS a diversity of approaches will improve overall public safety, better address the root causes of many issues, promote racial justice, better protect vulnerable members of our community, and more efficiently allocate public resources; WHEREAS, the residents of Brooklyn Center have demanded change in our City and will help co-create new approaches to health and safety and in our community, and this Resolution affirms our commitment to an intentional, inclusive and collaborative process that involves City leadership and the community working together to fully implement the intent this Resolution; 1 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of the City of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, passes the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution, as follows: 1.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will ensure an unarmed Community Response Department responds to all incidents where a city resident is primarily experiencing a medical, mental health, disability-related, or other behavioral or social need, including by the creation of a Community Response Department consisting of trained medical and mental health professionals, social workers, or other staff and volunteers, and by a dispatch system routing appropriate calls to the Community Response Department and not to the Police Department; and by any other appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies; 2.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will ensure an unarmed civilian Traffic Enforcement Department has the responsibility for enforcing all non-moving traffic violations in the City, including by creating the civilian Traffic Enforcement Department and by any other appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies, including restricting or eliminating the types of traffic infractions enforced by the City’s armed law enforcement patrol officers; 3.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center shall create a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention (the “Department”)that shall be responsible for overseeing all city agencies and city efforts regarding community health and public safety, and ensuring a well-coordinated, public health-oriented approach throughout our city that relies upon a diversity of evidence-based approaches to public safety, and with a Director who has appropriate credentials and experience including public health expertise, and that at minimum the following existing and to-be-created City agencies will all report directly to the Department and be subject to the authority of its Director: the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Traffic Enforcement Department, and the Community Response Department; 2 4.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will create a permanent Community Safety and Violence Prevention Committee, to be chaired by the Director of the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention or a designee until hiring, the majority of whose members must be City residents with direct experience or the close experience of immediate family members with being arrested, detained, or having other contact with Brooklyn Center Police, and that committee will review and make recommendations regarding the policing response to recent protests, review any draft collective bargaining agreement between the Police Department and provide comments to the City Manager and City Council before and during contract negotiations, make recommendations on creating a separate and permanent civilian oversight committee for the new Department; review Chapter 19 of the City Code and make recommendations with regard to repealing or amending provisions or penalties therein, including fines and fees, and periodically make any other recommendations to the City Council related to initiating programs or policies to improve community health in Brooklyn Center; 5.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will more appropriately regulate the use of force by its armed law enforcement officers including by appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies requiring de-escalation,exhaustion of reasonable alternatives before using deadly force, prohibitions on using deadly force in certain situations including firing upon moving vehicles, prohibiting certain uses of force or other policing tactics during First Amendment protests and assemblies, and similar policies; 6.RESOLVED that to immediately prevent any further harm and to ensure the peace and safety of all City residents while this Resolution is being fully implemented, the City Council directs the City Manager to implement forthwith a citywide “citation and summons” policy requiring officers to issues citations only,and prohibiting custodial arrests or consent searches of persons or vehicles, for any non-moving traffic infraction, non-felony offense, or non-felony warrant, such emergency policies to stay in effect until repealed or modified by subsequent resolution or ordinance adopted pursuant to this Resolution, and the Implementation Committee will make recommendations regarding making these policy changes permanent and/or modifying them as needed, including by appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or 3 policies; 7.RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will create a Community Safety and Violence Prevention Implementation Committee (“Implementation Committee”), including residents and experts from Brooklyn Center and other local, state and national experts in public health-oriented approaches to community safety as appointed by the Mayor, that will draft any and all amendments, ordinances, resolutions, policies,guidelines or other recommendations for the review, adoption and/or implementation by City Council or City staff, as appropriate, that would fully implement the will and intent of City Council as expressed in this Resolution; 8.RESOLVED that the Implementation Committee will be intentional about ensuring the community fully understands the implementation plans and has the opportunity to comment upon them, including periodic progress reports in open City Council meetings monthly, or more frequently upon Council’s request; that the Implementation Committee is empowered to explore external sources of funding to implement the resolution and that the City may retain additional counsel or other temporary staff as reasonable and necessary to enable the Implementation Committee to complete its work; and the Implementation Committee will present recommendations to City Council for initial consideration not later than 180 days from the date of this Resolution unless otherwise directed by City Council; 9.RESOLVED that the City Attorney, City Manager and Chief of Police and other City personnel will provide all necessary assistance and support to all the committees created pursuant to this Resolution, including by supplying the committees with any and all needed data, budgetary, staffing or other information, and assisting with the crafting of amendments, ordinances or policies as requested by the Implementation Committee. 4 About the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution What problems in Brooklyn Center is the resolution going to address? In Brooklyn Center today, our armed police officers are too often our first, last and only resort for our community’s needs. Whether those needs are keeping our roads safe, responding to a resident experiencing a mental health crisis, or dealing with a petty offense. That is not a good use of our police officers’ time, and it can lead to ineffective--even tragic--outcomes. ●Last year, 88% of all 9-1-1 calls from Brooklyn City center related to non-criminal matters, like traffic, medical, mental health, and other requests for help. Only 22% related to any concern about a crime;1 ●Out of the 10.3 million arrests made per year by police,only 5% of those are for the most serious crimes. When police officers make arrests,the overwhelming majority of their time--95%--is spent making arrests for low-level offenses; ●Being handcuffed, arrested, and spending even just a few days in jail for a low-level matter has severe consequences for our Brooklyn Center families and residents: it increases housing instability and homelessness, worsens educational outcomes, causes medical and mental health problems, reduces earning potential, and increases rates of divorce and family separation; ●In 2018, the Brooklyn Center Police Department arrested Black people for marijuana possession at 15x the rate of white people - this is almost 5 times the national Black-white racial disparity arrest rate for marijuana possession. In 2018, Brooklyn Center Police arrested Black people for disorderly conduct at 10X the rate that they arrested white people, arresting 77 Black people but only 10 white people for the offense; ●In 2020,58% of police-involved killings in the U.S.last year began when officers responded to non-violent incidents, like traffic stops,mental health issues, and general welfare checks. What will the resolution do? The resolution would address problems with our current approach to safety in Brooklyn Center by creating a greater diversity of responses, using common-sense approaches that have been proven to work in other cities. It will transform our system so that armed police and arrests are not the only available response for everything, and it will increase transparency and community input. 1 City of Brooklyn Center “Calls for Service by Service Type” on file with City. The resolution will transform public safety in Brooklyn Center by: ●Creating a new Department of Community Safety & Violence Prevention that will oversee the Police and Fire Departments, as well as two newly created Departments: the Traffic Enforcement Department and the Community Response Department. ○The Traffic Enforcement Department will be an unarmed civilian department responsible for enforcing non-moving traffic violations in the City. ○The Community Response Department will consist of trained medical and mental health professionals, social workers, or other expert staff and volunteers responsible for responding to incidents where a city resident is experiencing a medical, mental health, disability-related, or other behavioral or social need. ●Creating a permanent Community Safety & Violence Prevention Committee who will review city safety data and make recommendations to the City Council on how to modify and/or initiate programs or policies to improve community safety and prevent violence. The committee will also create a separate civilian oversight body for the new Department, have the ability to review any draft collective bargaining agreement between the Police Department and provide comments to the City Manager and Mayor before and during contract negotiations. A majority of the committee will be made up of Brooklyn Center residents. ●Implementing immediate safety-oriented policy changes that would appropriately regulate law enforcement use of force including during First Amendment protests and assemblies, and require police to issue citations and prohibit custodial arrests for any traffic infractions, non-felony offense, or non-felony warrant. Have there been other towns or cities that have done this work before? Yes. Cities across the country have taken steps to reimagine public safety. For example, in Eugene, OR, the community responder program known as CAHOOTS has for decades been providing mental health response and addressing other community’s needs when a response by armed law enforcement officers is neither needed or appropriate. In Denver, CO, the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) pilot program has been directing emergency calls to a two-person team: a medic and a clinician, staffed in a van from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. In its first six months, the program responded to 748 calls; no calls required the assistance of police, and no one was arrested. In Berkeley, CA,the city council approved the creation of a new department of transportation that will employ unarmed traffic monitors to enforce low-level traffic offenses like driving with an expired registration or driving with a broken taillight. The city has also banned police officers from making stops for low-level traffic offenses and directing police to only conduct traffic stops for things that directly endanger public safety like driving under the influence and excessive speeding.Oakland,CA passed a similar reform a few years earlier and saw the number of traffic stops fell by more than half, while overall crime also fell. They have also approved a pilot program that will divert some 911 calls to more appropriate community responders. In Austin, TX, the city council transformed their budget to move certain functions (like their forensic lab and internal affairs)outside of their police department. They also reallocated $50 million to a “reimagining fund” with a view to reviewing how current police functions (like park patrol, traffic enforcement,and mounted units) could be improved or moved toward more civilian-led functions. In Ithaca, NY,local leaders passed a resolution that creates a new public safety department -- similar to the one proposed here in Brooklyn Center. In Brooklyn Center, we will be transforming our system to what our community needs and what will work best for us. We will be informed by research-backed and public health-oriented approaches to public safety, adapting them to what will work best in our city. Our goal will be to provide our residents with the right response at the right time to ensure everyone’s safety. Additional information about unarmed civilian traffic enforcement and community responder models: ●Traffic without the police. Jordan Blair Woods. Stanford Law Review, Vol 73, 2021. ●After Daunte Wright’s death, advocates press leaders to get police out of traffic enforcement.The Appeal. April 14, 2021. ●A path to non-police enforcement of civil traffic violations.Sarah A. Seo, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Data for Progress. August 2020. ●The Community Response Model.How cities can send the right responder to every 911 call. Center for American Progress and Law Enforcement Action Partnership. October 2020. ●Over half of police-involved killings in 2020 began after non-violent incidents. Axios. April 12, 2021. ●This City Stopped Sending Police to Every 911 Call.The Marshall Project. July 24, 2020. What is the immediate impact of the resolution? If the resolution passes, an Implementation Committee will be formed and have 180 days to come forward with the specifics for the new departments for Council to consider and vote upon. While that happens, the measure puts in place some immediate safety-oriented policy changes that direct the City Manager to implement a citywide “citation and summons” policy for non-serious, low-level offenses, requiring officers to issue citations (tickets) only for things like low-level marijuana possession, disorderly conduct,and similar violations. How will the new Department of Community Safety &Violence Prevention be funded? The City currently spends about 43% of its annual budget on policing. One of the first jobs of the Implementation Committee will likely be looking at this budget line, taking into account the City’s general fund and existing public works, as well as exploring available external funding opportunities (i.e. federal or foundational grants). Will the resolution reduce the size or budget of the existing Brooklyn Center police or fire department? The Police Department and Fire Department will operate as part of the new Department of Community Safety & Violence Prevention. Changes to any department -- including those related to personnel and budget -- must be first considered and proposed by the Implementation Committee. As outlined in the resolution, the Implementation Committee will include residents and experts from Brooklyn Center and other local,state and national experts in public health-oriented approaches to community safety. How long will it take to do all the things outlined in the resolution? The resolution is the critical first step in building a safer future for all Brooklyn Center residents. Following the passage of the resolution, the Implementation Committee will have 180 days to come forward with the specifics for the new departments for Council to consider and vote upon. Those plans will detail timelines and benchmarks for creating, funding and staffing the new departments. Based on models of this work happening in other cities across the country, full implementation will likely be a multi-year process.Throughout the implementation process, the Implementation Committee will give monthly progress reports and updates to the Council. Last updated: May 8, 2021 Members ___ introduced the following resolution and moved its adoption: RESOLUTION NO. ___ THE DAUNTE WRIGHT AND KOBE DIMOCK-HEISLER COMMUNITY SAFETY AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION RESOLUTION WHEREAS, the City of Brooklyn Center can create a safer, healthier, more just, and more thriving community by promoting a diversity of responses to our community’s safety needs that do not rely solely on our armed law enforcement officers; WHEREAS, many approaches proven to be safe and effective for responding to non-moving traffic offenses, low-level violations, to people with mental health needs or disabilities, and to other similar situations, do not involve armed law enforcement officers; WHEREAS, creating alternative responses in these situations will allow our law enforcement officers to focus their time, training and expertise on serious threats to the immediate safety of our residents; WHEREAS, relying on our armed law enforcement officers as first responders in these situations has in some circumstances resulted in escalation, harm, and the tragic and potentially avoidable loss of life for our residents, including Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler; WHEREAS a diversity of approaches will improve overall public safety, better address the root causes of many issues, promote racial justice, better protect vulnerable members of our community, and more efficiently allocate public resources; WHEREAS, the residents of Brooklyn Center have demanded change in our City and will help co-create new approaches to health and safety and in our community, and this Resolution affirms our commitment to an intentional, inclusive and collaborative process that involves City leadership and the community working together to fully implement the intent this Resolution; 1 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of the City of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, passes the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution, as follows: 1. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will ensure an unarmed Community Response Department responds to all incidents where a city resident is primarily experiencing a medical, mental health, disability-related, or other behavioral or social need, including by the creation of a Community Response Department consisting of trained medical and mental health professionals, social workers, or other staff and volunteers, and by a dispatch system routing appropriate calls to the Community Response Department and not to the Police Department; and by any other appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies; 2. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will ensure an unarmed civilian Traffic Enforcement Department has the responsibility for enforcing all non-moving traffic violations in the City, including by creating the civilian Traffic Enforcement Department and by any other appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies, including restricting or eliminating the types of traffic infractions enforced by the City’s armed law enforcement patrol officers; 3. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center shall create a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention (the “Department”) that shall be responsible for overseeing all city agencies and city efforts regarding community health and public safety, and ensuring a well-coordinated, public health-oriented approach throughout our city that relies upon a diversity of evidence-based approaches to public safety, and with a Director who has appropriate credentials and experience including public health expertise, and that at minimum the following existing and to-be-created City agencies will all report directly to the Department and be subject to the authority of its Director: the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Traffic Enforcement Department, and the Community Response Department; 2 4. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will create a permanent Community Safety and Violence Prevention Committee, to be appointed and chaired by the Director of the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention or a designee until hiring, the majority of whose members must be City residents with direct experience being arrested, detained, or having other similar contact with Brooklyn Center Police, and that committee will review and make recommendations regarding the policing response to recent protests, review any draft collective bargaining agreement between the Police Department and provide comments to the City Manager and City Council before and during contract negotiations, create a separate and permanent civilian oversight committee for the new Department, review Chapter 19 of the City Code and make recommendations with regard to repealing or amending provisions or penalties therein, including fines and fees, and periodically make any other recommendations to the City Council related to initiating programs or policies to improve community health in Brooklyn Center; 5. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will more appropriately regulate the use of force by its armed law enforcement officers including by appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies requiring de-escalation, exhaustion of reasonable alternatives before using deadly force, prohibitions on using deadly force in certain situations including firing upon moving vehicles, prohibiting certain uses of force or other policing tactics during First Amendment protests and assemblies, and similar policies; 6. RESOLVED that to immediately prevent any further harm and to ensure the peace and safety of all City residents while this Resolution is being fully implemented, the City of Brooklyn Center thru the Mayor or his designee will implement forthwith a citywide “citation and summons” policy requiring officers to issue citations only, and prohibiting custodial arrests or consent searches of persons or vehicles, for any non-moving traffic infraction, non-felony offense, or non-felony warrant, and the Implementation Committee will make recommendations regarding making these policy changes permanent and/or modifying them as needed, including by appropriate changes in ordinance, practices or policies; 3 7. RESOLVED that the City of Brooklyn Center will create a Community Safety and Violence Prevention Implementation Committee (“Implementation Committee”), including residents from Brooklyn Center and other local, state and national experts in public health-oriented approaches to community safety, as appointed by the Mayor, that will draft any and all amendments, ordinances, resolutions, policies, guidelines or other recommendations for the review, adoption and/or implementation by City Council or City staff, as appropriate, that would fully implement the will and intent of City Council as expressed in this Resolution; 8. RESOLVED that the Implementation Committee will ensure the community has the opportunity to review and comment upon the all implementation plans, including by making periodic progress reports in open City Council meetings monthly, or more frequently upon Council’s request; that the Implementation Committee is empowered to explore external sources of funding to implement the resolution and that the City may retain additional counsel or other temporary staff as reasonable and necessary to enable the Implementation Committee to complete its work; and the Implementation Committee will present recommendations to City Council for initial consideration no later than 180 days from the date of this Resolution; 9. RESOLVED that the City Attorney, City Manager and Chief of Police and other City personnel will provide all necessary assistance and support to all committees created pursuant to this Resolution, including by supplying the committees with any and all needed data, including confidential or private data as requested with appropriate protections, and budgetary, staffing or other information, and assisting with the crafting of amendments, ordinances or policies as requested by the Implementation Committee. 4 Dr. Maria Ponomarenko Dr. Maria Ponomarenko is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and joined the law school faculty in Fall 2019. She teaches and writes in the areas administrative law, constitutional law, and criminal procedure. Her work focuses in particular on government agencies—such as policing agencies—that operate in domains that fall beyond the reach of traditional administrative law and scholarship. In addition to her work at the law school, Ponomarenko is co-founder and counsel at the Policing Project, a non-profit based at the NYU School of Law that works in tandem with policing agencies and community groups to promote more effective police governance. She also is an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law: Policing project. Ponomarenko graduated summa cum laude from NYU Law,where she won numerous prizes and fellowships, including the Furman Academic Scholarship,the Robert B. McKay Prize in constitutional law, and the Maurice Goodman Memorial Prize for overall achievement. She also served as an Articles Editor on the NYU Law Review.After graduating from NYU, she clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Posner on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Ponomarenko holds a B.A. in History and Economics and an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. Assistant Chief Tom Thompson (Ret.) Assistant Chief Tom Thompson (Ret.) began his law enforcement career in 1995 as a patrol officer with the Miamisburg Police Department in Ohio.In 2002, he became a sergeant, and his responsibilities expanded to include managing patrol operations. In 2005, he was elevated to an administrative sergeant where he evaluated procedures and supervised dispatch functions. In 2007, he became a criminal investigation sergeant and supervised the Detective Section and was responsible for investigating homicides, property crimes, sex offenses, and financial crimes. In 2012, he was promoted to Assistant Chief of Police and oversaw all operations of the department. In 2016, Thompson left the Miamisburg Police Department to become Assistant City Manager. In 2017, he became Chief of the Grandview Medical Center Police Department and was in charge of police operations across six campuses in addition to offsite facilities. Beginning in 2018, he took up his current position as Network Executive Director of Police with the Kettering Health Network, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of plans, processes, and procedures for all policing and security across the 13 campuses. Assistant Chief Thompson is the founder and Executive Director of Valens Solutions, a non-profit that works to secure employment, education,ESL, health care, and other quality of life needs for the immigrant community of Miami Valley.He is a member of Montgomery County Improving Modern Police and Community Trust, the International Association of Hospital Safety and Security, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, the Montgomery Police Chief Association, Greene Police Chief Association, and Preble Police Chief Association. He holds a BA in criminal justice from Chapman University and a MPA from Wright State University. Dr. Jordan Blair Woods Jordan Blair Woods is a criminologist and legal scholar at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Woods serves as the Faculty Director of the Richard B. Atkinson LGBTQ Law & Policy Program at the law school. His primary research interests and teaching areas include criminal law and procedure, family law, law & sexuality, professional responsibility, and constitutional law. His scholarship focuses on the regulation of law enforcement,criminal justice issues affecting LGBTQ populations, and the legal regulation of youth in family and child welfare contexts. His recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, George Washington Law Review, and North Carolina Law Review. In 2021, Woods was recognized by the National LGBT Bar Association as one of the Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40. Woods is a two-time recipient of the Dukeminier Award, which recognizes the best sexual orientation and gender identity law review articles published each year (“LGBT Identity and Crime,” 105 California Law Review 667 (2017); “Unaccompanied Youth and Private-Public Order Failures,” 103 Iowa Law Review 1639 (2018)). In 2019, Woods was named as a Harry Krause Emerging Family Law Scholar by the University of Illinois College of Law’s Family Law and Policy Program. His article “Policing, Danger Narratives, and Routine Traffic Stops,” 117 Michigan Law Review 635 (2019),was selected for presentation at the 2018 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. For three consecutive years since joining the law faculty, Woods has been awarded the University of Arkansas Faculty Commendation for Teaching Commitment. Prior to joining the law faculty, Woods served as a fellow at the Williams Institute, a research institute on LGBT law and public policy at UCLA School of Law. He clerked for the Honorable Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Woods holds an A.B. from Harvard College, J.D. from UCLA School of Law,and M.Phil. and Ph.D. in criminology from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. Written Testimony in Support of The Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution May 8, 2021 My name is Maria Ponomarenko, and I am a law professor at the University of Minnesota, and also the Co-founder and Counsel at the Policing Project at NYU Law. At the Policing Project we’ve worked closely with police departments and community members in more than a dozen jurisdictions—including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tucson, and Nashville—to help make policing more effective, equitable, and just. I want to start out by commending the City Council for taking up these issues, and for doing so in a manner that recognizes the need for transformative change. Too often the response on the part of elected officials to moments of crisis has been to tinker at the margins. What we’ve seen time and again, however, is that piecemeal efforts simply do not work. I also want to underscore that although historically, elected officials have tried to avoid getting too involved in how policing occurs in their communities, what you’re doing now is not only well within your purview—it is in fact your responsibility. We give police officers extraordinary authority to detain individuals and to use force against them. It is up to us—and, in particular, up to you as representatives of your communities—to ensure that this authority is used in a manner that actually promotes public safety and minimizes the risk of harm. As for the proposed resolutions, I’d like to focus my remarks on two in particular: regarding enforcement of non-moving violations, and the use of citations in lieu of custodial arrest for low- level offenses. Low-Level Traffic Stops The first resolution calls for the creation of an unarmed civilian Traffic Enforcement Department to enforce non-moving violations. This proposal would ensure that these sorts of infractions could not be used as a “pretext” to stop someone to investigate more serious wrongdoing, and it would reduce the risk that a minor infraction could potentially escalate into a lethal encounter. Although many departments have relied on pretext stops as a crime control strategy, the reality is that they do very little to promote public safety—and they cause a great deal of harm. You’ve heard a great deal about the harms of pretext stops, particularly in communities of color. Today I want to address the notion that these harms are something we need to accept in order to give the police the tools they need to keep us safe. The evidence does not back up this claim. In 2017, the Policing Project was asked to evaluate the Nashville Police Department’s use of pretext stops as a crime fighting tool. Like many agencies, the Nashville Police Department was convinced that pretext stops were an essential tool for addressing violent crime. The evidence did not back this up. Working with researchers from the Stanford Computational Policy Lab we looked at the “hit rates” for stops—which is to say the number of stops that resulted in arrest for more serious crimes. And we also evaluated the impact of stops on crime rates in the neighborhoods in which they were used. What we found is that only a tiny fraction of stops—less than 1%—resulted in a gun charge, the discovery of an outstanding warrant, or an arrest for a more serious crime like robbery or burglary. And importantly, we also found no effect on surrounding crime rates.1 Indeed, there was some evidence to suggest that Nashville’s stop practices actually undermined public safety by alienating the very communities from whom the department needed cooperation in order to meaningfully address violent crime. To the Department’s credit, they quickly recognized that there were much better ways for their officers to spend their time. In the two years after our study, the department cut stops by more than 80%. The Department now emphasizes that traffic enforcement should focus primarily on traffic safety. And it relies on more targeted strategies—often in collaboration with residents—to address violent crime. Other cities have adopted a similar approach. Berkeley is in the process of implementing a proposal along the lines proposed here. Virginia recently passed a bill that simply prohibits officers from pulling people over for low-level equipment violations. I would strongly urge the City Council to follow their lead. The one thing I would urge as you formalize the resolution, however, is to consider adding low- level moving violations to the list as well. One concern is that if officers can no longer stop someone for a broken tail-light, we will start to see a lot more stops for failure to signal, or for going just a few miles over the speed limit. We at the Policing Project are working on a comprehensive statute to address the use of pretext stops, and as part of that process are developing a broader list of offenses that should generally not give rise to a stop. I would be happy to share that list with the City Council once we have finalized it. Citations in Lieu of Arrest The other resolution I’d like to briefly speak to today is the proposal to require officers to issue a citation in lieu of arrest for non-felony offenses and warrants. A custodial arrest is a serious intrusion that must be justified by an equally weighty public safety interest. When an individual poses an immediate risk of harm to others, an arrest may be unavoidable. But the reality is that far too often we arrest people in circumstances where the harms caused by the arrest far outweigh any government interest at stake. Custodial arrests impose two distinct sorts of harms: First, there is the cost of the arrest itself, both to the individual arrested and to the criminal justice system. These costs are substantial and should not be underestimated. Second, once we authorize an arrest, we also implicitly authorize an officer to use force to effect that arrest. (This does not need to be that way of course—and in fact the 1 https://www.policingproject.org/news-main/Nashville-report-released Policing Project’s model use of force statute imposes much stricter limits on the level of force that may be used to effect a misdemeanor arrest.2) But the surest way to avoid the need to use force is to prohibit the arrest altogether. Again, a number of jurisdictions have already moved in this direction. A number of states, for example, permit or require officers to issue a summons in lieu of arrest for a variety of low-level offenses. Some states also limit the circumstances under which an outstanding warrant may be issued, which reduces the need to take people into custody for failure to appear in court.3 Indeed, one thing we have seen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it is in fact possible to arrest far fewer people than we currently do. In order to limit the size of the jail population during the pandemic, a number of major cities, including Portland and Washington D.C., implemented emergency regulations to require summons in lieu of arrest for a wide array of misdemeanor offenses.4 I would strongly encourage you to adopt precisely this sort of policy—but on a permanent basis. 2 https://www.policingproject.org/force-statute 3 See, e.g. https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/code-of-criminal-procedure/crim-ptx-crim-pro-art-45-014.html (prohibiting judges from issuing an outstanding warrant for a first time failure to appear) 4 See, e.g.: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5edff6436067991288014c4c/t/6007104bf66a522424777aa1/1611075659671/ Citation+in+Lieu+of+Arrest.pdf Written Testimony of Jordan Blair Woods Associate Professor of Law Faculty Director, Richard B. Atkinson LGBTQ Law &Policy Program University of Arkansas School of Law, Fayetteville Saturday, May 9, 2021 Re: Written Testimony for the Brooklyn Center City Council in Support of the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution Dear Mayor and Members of the Brooklyn Center City Council: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Jordan Blair Woods.I am a tenured professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law,where I teach courses in criminal law and procedure,policing,and constitutional law. The views I express here,however,are my own.I have doctorates in both law and criminology.I am a leading expert in issues involving policing during traffic stops and non-police alternatives to traffic law enforcement. In my limited time, I want to make two main points: 1.First,I would like to provide some background on traffic policing.For decades,states and localities have relied on police,and typically armed police officers,to enforce traffic laws.The breadth of the traffic code creates a low bar for police officers to justify pulling over any driver.Police officers often use minor traffic violations as pretexts to stop drivers,particularly people of color,and conduct criminal investigations.In our current system where traffic enforcement and policing are intertwined,traffic stops all too often escalate into police violence against stopped drivers and passengers of color. 2.Second,localities do not need to rely on police officers to enforce traffic laws.Instead, localities can invest in new systems of civilian traffic enforcement.Among its most important benefits,civilian traffic enforcement would reduce racial disparities in policing and prevent traffic stops from escalating into police violence,especially against stopped drivers and passengers of color. I.Background on Traffic Policing in the United States For decades,states and localities have relied on police,and typically armed police officers,to enforce traffic laws.1 Currently,traffic stops are the most common way that police come into contact with civilians in the United States.2 Each year,officers conduct tens of millions of traffic 2 ERIKA HARRELL &ELIZABETH DAVIS,BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS,U.S.DEP’T OF JUSTICE,CONTACTS BETWEEN POLICE AND THE PUBLIC,2018,at 4 (2020)(reporting that of the 28.9 million people who experienced police-initiated contact in 2018, 18.7 million were drivers and 5.7 million were passengers during a traffic stop). 1 See generally SARAH A. SEO, POLICING THE OPEN ROAD:HOW CARS TRANSFORMED AMERICAN FREEDOM (2019). 1 stops.3 Many of these stops are based on minor traffic violations. The breadth of state and local traffic codes provides countless opportunities for police officers to pull drivers over.State and local traffic laws include a wide range of moving violations (for example,speeding,failure to signal,or failure to stop at a stop sign)and non-moving violations (for example,headlight or taillight violations,improper parking,or driving without a valid license or registration).Some traffic violations,like erratic or reckless driving,are open-ended and imprecisely defined. Police officers have vast discretion when deciding when to pull drivers over and what actions to take during traffic stops.For example,under current Fourth Amendment law,traffic enforcement does not have to be the primary motivation for a traffic stop.4 During a traffic stop,officers can routinely order drivers and passengers out of cars,frisk them,conduct protective searches of certain areas of the vehicle,ask for consent to search their person or vehicles,and even conduct arrests for minor traffic violations.5 The history of traffic policing shows that relying on police to enforce traffic laws places all civilians,and particularly drivers and passengers of color,at risk for being subjected to an awesome amount of law enforcement activity.For decades,traffic stops have had a much broader purpose than traffic safety or traffic law compliance.Rather,police officers have used and continue to use traffic stops as a primary tool of criminal investigation and proactive policing.6 Officers commonly use minor traffic violations as pretexts to stop and search persons whom they believe are “suspicious”and involved in crime that has nothing to do with the underlying traffic violation.7 These practices persist,even though empirical data lends support to the idea that traffic stops are a relatively ineffective tool of criminal investigation.8 All too often, officer judgments about “suspicious”persons and activity are intertwined with improper and misguided assumptions about race and communities of color. 8 See,e.g.,CHRISTINE EITH &MATTHEW R.DUROSE,BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS,CONTACTS BETWEEN POLICE AND THE PUBLIC,2008 at 11 (2011)(reporting data from a nationally representative sample that only 8.4%of searches of a vehicle,driver,or both during traffic stops led to evidence of crime);POLICING PROJECT:NYU SCH.OF L.,AN ASSESSMENT OF TRAFFIC STOPS AND POLICING STRATEGIES IN NASHVILLE 7 (2018), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a33e881b631bc60d4f8b31/t/5bf2d18d562fa747a554f6b0/1542640014294/P olicing+Project+Nashville+Report.pdf (presenting findings from a Nashville-based study showing that “[f]or every 1,000 non-moving violation stops,just over 2%(or 21)resulted in an arrest,or the recovery of drugs or other contraband”and that traffic stops did not appear to have a significant impact on long-term crime trends or crime in the short term). 7 Devon W.Carbado,From Stopping Black People to Killing Black People:The Fourth Amendment Pathways to Police Violence,105 CALIF.L.REV.125,152-56 (2017);Angela J.Davis,Race ,Cops,and Traffic Stops,51 U. MIAMI L. REV. 425, 425-26 (1997). 6 Jordan Blair Woods,Decriminalization,Police Authority,and Routine Traffic Stops,62 UCLA L.REV.672, 737-38 (2015). 5 See generally Lewis R.Katz,“Lonesome Road,”Driving Without the Fourth Amendment,36 SEATTLE U.L. REV.1413 (2013);Wayne R.LaFave,The “Routine Traffic Stop”from Start to Finish:Too Much “Routine,”Not Enough Fourth Amendment, 102 MICH. L. REV. 1843 (2004). 4 Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 811-13 (1996). 3 Id;Pierson et al.,A Large-Scale Analysis of Racial Disparities in Police Stops Across the United States,4 NATURE &HUM.BEHAV.736,736 (2020)(“More than 20 million Americans are stopped each year for traffic violations.”). 2 Several studies show that police disproportionately stop people of color,often for pretextual reasons,and subject them to additional intrusive police activity through questioning,frisking, searching,citing,and arresting them.9 Police-initiated traffic stops are often frightening and humiliating experiences for people of color.Time and time again,traffic stops escalate into unnecessary violence against stopped drivers and passengers,especially people of color.The tragic killing of Duante Wright is a vivid reminder that routine traffic stops can be deadly for unarmed Black drivers who pose no danger. II.How Civilian Traffic Enforcement Would Work and Its Benefits Civilian traffic enforcement would avoid these injustices while still achieving traffic safety.In a forthcoming article in the Stanford Law Review,I present a new legal framework for civilian traffic enforcement that is in line with the city’s proposed resolution.10 The framework reframes traffic enforcement as a transportation safety and not a policing problem. Here is how the new system would work:Localities would redelegate the bulk of traffic enforcement to newly created “traffic agencies,”which would be staffed by public employees called “traffic monitors.”Instead of police officers,traffic monitors would be in charge of conducting in-person traffic stops for minor traffic violations (for instance,speeding,failure to maintain a lane,red light violations,etc.).Unlike police officers,traffic monitors would not be armed or vested with powers to detain,search,or arrest.The authority of traffic monitors would be limited to stopping vehicles for traffic violations,requesting documentation,and issuing traffic tickets.Their basic training would include violence prevention,verbal de-escalation tactics,and self-defense strategies.Traffic monitors would not be authorized to run criminal background checks and traffic agencies would not have access to such information. A key feature of a civilian traffic enforcement system is that newly created traffic agencies and traffic monitors would operate entirely separate from the police.Collaboration between traffic monitors and the police would only be allowed in very limited circumstances.For instance, traffic monitors could request police assistance only if necessary,when faced with a more serious driving offense (perhaps,driving a stolen vehicle or driving while intoxicated).Traffic monitors could also request police assistance if during a traffic stop,they encounter a very limited subset of non-traffic crimes that involve violence or an imminent threat of violence against a person in a stopped vehicle (for instance, kidnapping or aggravated battery or assault). Civilian traffic enforcement would have major benefits for reducing racial disparities in policing. This new system would dramatically reduce the extent to which people of color come into contact with the police through traffic enforcement.Police would no longer be able to use minor traffic violations as pretexts to stop people of color and peruse for evidence of non-traffic crime. In addition,stops for minor traffic violations would not escalate into unnecessary and unjustified 10 Jordan Blair Woods,Traffic Without the Police,73 STAN.L.Rev.(forthcoming June 2021),available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3702680. 9 See,e.g.,FRANK R.BAUMGARTNER,DEREK A.EPP &KELSEY SHOUB,SUSPECT CITIZENS:WHAT 20 MILLION TRAFFIC STOPS TELL US ABOUT POLICING AND RACE 25 (2018);Pierson et al.,supra note 3,at 738;Stephen Rushin &Griffin Edwards,An Empirical Assessment of Pretextual Stops and Racial Profiling, 73 STAN. L. REV. 637, 644 (2021). 3 police violence and killings of people of color.Simply put,civilian traffic enforcement brings the purpose of traffic stops back to being about traffic safety and traffic law enforcement. Other jurisdictions are already moving in the direction of civilian traffic enforcement in order to address recurring problems and injustices that stem from police-initiated traffic stops.Most notably,in July 2020,the City of Berkeley,California voted in favor of a proposal to remove police from conducting traffic stops as part of a comprehensive plan to achieve structural police reform.11 The proposal directs the city to create a department of transportation staffed by unarmed civil servants who would be in charge of enforcing traffic laws instead.In several other localities,calls are growing for similar reforms that remove police from traffic enforcement in favor of non-police alternatives to enforce traffic laws. * * * I realize that my time is limited.I thank you for the attention that you are paying to these critical problems and for the opportunity to testify today.I look forward to answering your questions. 11 Kellen Browning &Jill Cowan,How Berkeley Could Remove the Police from Traffic Stops,N.Y.TIMES (July 9, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/us/berkeley-ca-police-department-reform.html. 4 Alexes Harris, PhD Presidential Ter m Professor Professor of Sociolog y University of Washington Submitted: May 5, 2021 Contact:yharris@uw.edu, 206-250-9964, alexes-harris.com My name is Alexes Harris, for identification purposes,I have been a professor of sociology at the University of Washington for the past 17 years. I have studied legal financial obligations (LFOs) in Washington and Nationally for the last 13 years. I am the author of a book on monetar y sanctions in Washington State titled “A Pound of Flesh: Monetar ySanctions as a Punishment for the Poor.” In considering THE DAUNTE WRIGHT AND KOBE DIMOCK-HEISLER COMMUNITY SAFETY AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION RESOLUTION, I ask you to consider the criminal legal mechanisms that lead to violence between the police and community members that we have publically witnessed over the last several years.Research shows we need to decrease police contact within our communities that leads to public safety issues. This resolution begins to address these issues with the creation of a Community Response Department. I am g oing to address the recent killing of a young man in your community to provide an example of the problem with police pretext traffic stops. Daunte Wright was stopped on what is called a “pretext traffic stop”– officers believed Mr. Wright had violated traffic laws, and doing so legally allowed them to pull him over. He was found to have a bench warrant that had been issued April 2nd for failure to appear at a zoom hearing for a new g ross misdemeanor charge. He also owed $346 in court fines and fees related to a prior cannabis and disorderly conduct conviction. What happened to Mr. Wright is ver y familiar to what happened to others:Philando Castile,Maurice Gordon,Ronell Foster,Walter Scott,Samuel DuBose,all had been pulled over by the police for pretextual traffic stops – minor traffic violations - which included broken taillights, failing to use turn signals, and riding a bike with no light. The stops allowed for the negative interactions to occur that ultimately led to the victims’ killings. Over 24 million people come into contact with the police in traffic stops annually. A large number of these stops are pretextual. The problem with pretext traffic stops is that when police use their discretion to decide whom they are going to pull over,they disproportionately pull over Black drivers more than White drivers, particularly within predominantly Black communities.As a result, Black drivers are searched 1.5 to 2 times as much as White drivers. Research consistently shows that police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias and point to the value of policy inter ventions to mitigate these disparities.1 The practice of pretext traffic stops allow police to sur veil communities of color – over patrol and pull people over. 1 Emma Pierson, Camelia Simoiu, Jan Overgoor , Sam Corbett-Davies, Daniel Jenson, Amy Shoemaker , Vignesh Ramachandran, Phoebe Barghouty,Cher yl Phillips, Ravi Shroff and Sharad Goel, Stanford Computational Policy Lab 1 In a recent report my colleague and I found that for all types of cases filed in Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) in 2017, people of color are ordered fines and fees more frequently than White people. Our analysis also shows that drivers of color, and in particular Black drivers, are far more likely than non-Black drivers to be charged with driving with a license suspended in the 3rd degree (DWLS3) following an SMC LFO. This implies that because of their inability to pay traffic citations, people of color are losing their ability to drive. These stops lead to frequent negative encounters between members of the Black community and the police that can result in violence, trauma and even death. For example, a Washington Post study from 2015, found that as a result of traffic stops,in one year, 100 people were killed by the police across the United States. Of these people, 1 in 3 were Black. While White, Black and Latino people had the same rate of being killed in these stops,Black drivers had a much higher rate of being pulled over. To understand why these traffic stops are allowed,we need to look at the broader picture of the criminal legal system that is reliant on these infractions as a source of funding. The System of Monetar y Sanctions I study the system of monetar y sanctions and identify it a key mechanism embedded within the criminal legal system related to pretext traffic stops.This system is comprised of fines, fees, restitution, and costs sentenced to people at the same time they are convicted and sent to jail or prison. Just like a jail or probation sentence, all monetary sanctions must be paid in full in order for a person to be released from court super vision. My work finds that when people are too poor to pay,their families, children, and communities are har med. This system affects individuals’ abilities to attain wealth, educational certification and degrees, maintain stable and safe housing, build credit and wealth, and even affects abilities to sustain employment. People can lose their driver’s licenses as well. This means they cannot bring their children to and from school and childcare, and ironically, people are unable to get to their jobs to raise the money to pay their fines and fees. In many states, until all costs are paid, people are unable to vote and must remain in constant communication with court officials about their living and financial arrangements.This practice of fines and fees occurs across the U.S. – even here in Minnesota. In fact, I just completed an eight state study and your state was included. Since the 1990s, states and local jurisdictions have expanded the types and costs of fees and fines sentenced to people convicted of traffic violations,juvenile, misdemeanor and felony offenses. The massive expansion of the criminal legal system – the number of people incarcerated in the United States has g rown 500%over the last 45 years – is connected to cities, counties, and states who faced economic shortfalls. Jurisdictions simply cannot afford the costs related to policing, detention, prosecution, conviction, and related punishments. 2 In 2021, cities and counties use these monetary sanctions across the nation to generate revenue for operating the criminal legal system and more. Local governments rely on these costs much like property and sales taxes – to fund local ser vices.For example, states are suing for merly incarcerated people and mandating they pay for their room and board.Some jurisdictions are threatening to garnish COVID relief payments for unpaid monetary sanctions. States even impose monetar y sanctions on people whose sole source of income is federal social security benefits. In understanding these motivations, we can see how when it comes to pretext traffic stops, police have become a for m of tax collectors – the pretext traffic stops allow police to generate profits, either via doling out traffic citations or in patrolling for people with war rants.My work sug gests that this system of monetary sanctions sets the context for negative police encounters. The Policy Implications are clear. We need to decrease the contact in our communities between the police and civilians – particularly interactions where a police officer carries a gun.Many jurisdictions across the United States (San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Portland,Oreg on; Austin, Texas; Berkeley, California) have moved to form and implement similar changes in policing as this current resolution sug gests. However, the changes have been so recent that studies have not yet been perfor med to examine efficacy (e.g. reduction in disparate stops, decrease in use of force, numbers of citations and extent of revenue collection).2 The Mayor’s resolution to create the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention is a start to cultivating safer communities but also to decreasing negative interactions in your community with the potential of violence. Creating an unar med civilian Crisis Response and Har m Reduction Department and a crisis hotline for residents to call for mental-health, disability-related or other behavioral or social needs is greatly needed. These innovative Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention will: 1) Provide needed crises support in communities 2) Will decrease tensions in communities when police pull people over for minor traffic violations 3) Will decrease pretext stops that set the stage for violent encounters 4) Will save police time to solve crimes and improve public safety Collectively, these changes could develop community trust for police, as the image of your city like so many others, has been damaged by past policing practices. Right now, the high profile state of policing in America has delegitimized the entire criminal legal system. Refor m like this proposed ordinance can help to change not only the public image,but also the real day-to-day interactions. This said, I urge you to not fund these programs from fines and fees imposed on your citizens via traffic infractions or other types of citations. I encourage you to think through alternative revenue generation strategies that do not transfer costs –via a citation tax – onto your citizens. I would also encourage you to think through other ways that you can loosen the connection between the practice of monetar y sanctions and policing. You could work with your police department to impose a policy that bans police from making traffic stops for economic-related reasons (broken 2 See below for brief description of proposed changes. 3 taillights, expired tabs).  You could also encourage your county court system to discontinue the issuing of warrants for failure to pay and failure to appear on cases regarding non-payment.  I will conclude by saying that you have the opportunity tonight to set a precedent for communities across this nation – to show that you have the will to make needed changes. Even by having the discussion you are leaders and I thank you for that.I appreciate your move to create real str uctural alternatives to existing practices that will increase public safety and improve community-police relations. 4 Jurisdictional Changes Re: Policing https://theappeal.org/traffic-enforcement-without-police/ ●Nov 2021 - San Francisco launched a prog ram to send behavioral health and medical professionals instead of police to respond to 911 calls involving nonviolent people experiencing mental health crises or substance use issues. ●The Seattle City Council voted to disband a team of police and outreach workers tasked with responding to homeless people and instead reinvest the team’s funding in community programs to help the homeless.  ●Portland, Oregon, the mayor and superintendent ag reed to remove police officers from the city’s schools and put the $1 million budgeted for school resource officers back into the community.  ●Austin, Texas, the City Council voted to cut over $20 million from the police department’s budget to open a family violence shelter and fund violence prevention programs, housing ser vices, substance use and mental healthcare ser vices,and more. The council intends to shrink the department’s budget and responsibilities even further by civilianizing many of its cur rent duties, like dispatch and forensics. ●The City of Berkeley, California, has already passed a proposal to do so. The proposal, passed in July, calls for the creation of a department of transportation (BerkDOT) to shift traffic and parking enforcement away from the Berkeley Police Department. Unar med BerkDOT agents would instead be responsible for carrying out traffic stops, though the details and funding still need to be ironed out.  Other Resources: https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/2020/08/04/fines-fees-and-police-divestment-statement-and- policy-recommendations/ 5 “This resolution is the result of the Brooklyn Center community demanding change - demanding a better way. No policy will bring back Daunte Wright. But we can enact changes that aim to ensure he’s the last. This resolution will transform our system so that armed police are not the only tool the city has for responding to community needs. It is community led and I support the local leadership in bringing forward their vision to make the city of Brooklyn Center safer for all residents today, and future generations tomorrow.I support it. Let’s get this done. We owe it to Daunte.” Congresswoman Ilhan Omar Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, U.S. House of Representatives May 7th, 2021 Dear Members of the Brooklyn Center City Council: I write to express my support for the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution. I am an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and an expert on the public health consequences of police use-of-force. My research on the disparate impact of police violence on the health and well-being of Black people in the US has appeared in the American Journal of Public Health and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. My research has shown that Black men are dramatically more likely to be killed by police than are white men. At contemporary levels of risk, my colleagues and I estimate that 1 in 1,000 Black men will be killed by police over the life course.We find that this risk is at least 2.5 times higher than the risk faced by white men, and that police violence ranks among the leading causes of death for young Black men. In the United States,police kill on average 3 people per day. This rate of killing is dramatically higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy. Many of these killings occur during routine traffic encounters, during mental health or family crisis response calls or during the execution of warrants.The killings of Daunte Wright and Philando Castile are but two examples among many. I have no doubt that the measures included in the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution will reduce the risk of police violence in your community, and that these measures would have the greatest positive health and well-being impacts on members of the Black community in Brooklyn Center. Police are trained to approach each civilian interaction as though it could rapidly escalate toward deadly violence. Decades of research clearly shows they deploy violence and escalate the hostility of interactions toward Black civilians dramatically more quickly and routinely than they do with white civilians. I have very little doubt that reducing the frequency with which armed officers interact with members of the public will reduce the risk of bodily injury or death caused by police violence. Sincerely, Frank Edwards Assistant Professor School of Criminal Justice Rutgers University - Newark TESTIMONY May 2021 Michelle S. Phelps Associate Professor of Sociology and Law University of Minnesota Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony for this hearing. My remarks are going to summarize a report my team published last year in the CURA Reporter, entitled Over-Policed and Under-Protected: Public Safety in North Minneapolis. The report details important racial disparities in experiences with police, residents’ desire for change, and policy recommendations for transformations in policing. While our study was based in North Minneapolis, our data have important implications for policing across Minnesota. Data Collection This report draws on a multi-year mixed-method study of community perceptions of the police and police reform in North Minneapolis. To be eligible to participate, respondents had to be an adult who was frequently in North Minneapolis, MN. North Minneapolis is a collection of neighborhoods North of downtown Minneapolis, marked by high rates of poverty, gun violence, and police contact. We advertised the study through flyer postings in different Northside locations (including community centers, restaurants, stores, salons, bus stops, churches, and barbershops). We also invited interviewees to share our contact information with their friends, family, and neighbors; some participants also posted our flyer to community social media groups. Our goal was not to generate a perfectly representative sample of residents, but, rather, to collect the narratives of a diverse group of residents of varied ages, genders, racial or ethnic backgrounds, income levels, and political affiliations. The interviews were conducted in 2017-2019. We began with a short questionnaire and then a longer open-ended qualitative interview. We asked residents to share their own experiences with police, attitudes about and experiences with policing activism, knowledge of police reform, and desires for the future of policing. Sample Demographics As you can in the report’s tables, our same was diverse across race, age, gender, and socio-economic status. Of the 112, 24 identified as white and 70 as Black or African American or Black and some other race. The interviews asked residents to share their experiences with exposure to violence and police, knowledge of police reform, attitudes about anti-police violence activism, and desires for the future of policing. Key Findings Finding #1: Many Northsiders take pride in their neighborhoods yet worry about crime and violence Many of the Northsiders we spoke to expressed feeling a sense of pride about their community, and felt that the Northside was unfairly stigmatized. At the same time, many residents expressed concerns about crime and violence. When asked to rate their perceptions of “neighborhood safety,” a third responded with “Poor” and nearly half said “Fair”; just 20% of respondents rated their neighborhood safety as “Good” or “Very Good.” These neighborhood concerns included gun violence, open-air drug markets, prostitution, teenage loitering and public fights, domestic disputes, high-speed traffic, and intimate partner violence. It was in this context that residents evaluated the actions of police. “There are good people here. There are people that you know, want to raise their kids and they get up every day ... Northside is beautiful. I love it!” -Kamela, Black woman, early-40s “You can get robbed, you can get, you know, just randomly shot, you can get that kind of stuff happen to you. So, you have to watch, you know, where you park your car, how you parkin’ it, your driving and everything else. You have to watch the people around you.” -Daniel, Black man, age 35 Finding #2: Negative experiences produce reduced trust in the police Most residents expressed deep concerns about the MPD and its ability to serve and protect North Minneapolis (and policing in the United States more broadly). Figure 1 summarizes our participants’ responses to a series of questions about police. On average, less than a third of respondents reported that police “Often” or “Almost Always” tried to do what was best, explained their decisions, gave residents voice, and made fair and neutral decisions. Only half of our respondents agreed that police were legitimate authorities and only 20% thought that the police department holds officers accountable for misconduct. A full 85% agreed that police officers judge residents based on their race or ethnicity. These findings were racially divided, however, with white residents of North Minneapolis more confident in the police than Black residents and other people of color. Black residents' negative attitudes about the police were often shaped by their own experiences with law enforcement, and those of their close friends and family. Black residents reported frequent policy harassment, criminalization, and abuse. Young men of color felt particularly vulnerable to police stops and violence; reports of being stopped in cars, especially when young Black men were riding together, were common. In addition, residents frequently mentioned high-profile cases of lethal police violence in the Twin Cities (including Jamar Clark and Philando Castile) and throughout the country--episodes of racial violence that re-traumatized Black community members and pushed some white residents to start to understand the problem of police violence. “You can’t go outside on the street or take your kids to the park without being harassed by the police. And when there was a serious crime, like a shooting or a murder, they wouldn’t show up...But any other day they’ll show up just to harass you and racially profile you…I don’t know if they’re there to protect and serve…I don’t feel that.I wouldn’t call them for anything.” -Darnell, Black man, mid-20s “News reports we seeing...people being actually gunned down by or shot by the police in broad daylight and the police is being let off free! That’s what’s taking a lot of the trust out from the community.” -Harold, Black man, age 50 “Sometimes—I’ma say this even though I don’t like ’em [police]—I like to see them because if anything happen to me, they around. But I see ’em a lot. I see ’em a lot.” -Tanya, Black woman, age 54 This aggressive policing of everyday behaviors outraged many respondents, especially in the context of inadequate responses to preventing and solving more serious crimes. In the report, we refer to this as over-policing and under-protection,with residents wanting protection from both criminal victimization and police violence. As a result,some residents (like Tanya) described a beleaguered ambivalence toward seeing police in the neighborhood—both reassured and made anxious by their presence. Finding #3: Many Northside residents want not just reform but policing transformation The vast majority of Northside residents at some point expressed support for major reforms—or transformations—in policing. While residents highlighted different reforms, many of them focused on police training in procedural justice and de-escalation, body cameras, recruiting officers who lived in the community, and accountability for officers who engaged in police misconduct. Yet discussions of specific reform mechanisms often turned critical, with residents questioning how much reforms had accomplished. For some Black residents, police violence, and the lack of accountability that followed, seemed an unbreakable cycle and proof of the failure of police reform. They saw this cycle as fundamentally tied to racism in the United States, with police violence as just one of many instances of the dehumanization and devaluation of Black lives. For these residents, the solution was not more reform,but instead, to fundamentally change public safety and the broader society to value Black life. “We're still dying quicker than we can effect change…I don't wanna be dead before I experience a neighborhood where I feel safe when the police are around… We all deserve to feel safe in our homes and ... our neighborhoods. We all deserve to have, you know, policing in our communities, or ways of managing things in our communities that are, like, helpful and positive… that build rather than tear down and destroy.” -Rudy, Black woman, age 37 Policy Recommendations #1: Build community resources for public safety beyond policing. Our interviewees were nearly unanimous in wanting more safety in their neighborhoods. Investments in North Minneapolis outside of policing could produce more safety from both community and police violence. Examples include investing violence interruption and prevention programs, converting abandoned lots into parks, and access to healthcare. #2: Accelerate efforts to reduce police misconduct and promote more justice for the victims of police violence. When officers are not held accountable for violence,it perpetuates trauma and lack of trust in the police. We need to strengthen existing bureaucratic and legal options for providing accountability for police violence, from harassment to murders of citizens. This includes renegotiating union contracts, increasing civilian involvement in setting discipline and policies, and more public transparency in these processes. #3: Create “feedback loops” to empower the most impacted residents in deciding the future of public safety. It is not enough for police departments to consult with community leaders; those conversations need to include residents too—especially those most at risk of victimization by other community members and/or police officers. We need community members’ voices to be central in this process.