*Several cities across the nation have responded to the death of Tyre Nichols by limiting traffic stops for minor offenses.
Nichols died days after being violently beaten by members of the Memphis police department. The encounter occurred when Nichols was pulled over for suspicion of reckless driving. His death has renewed calls to limit how often police pull over cars for minor offenses, which disproportionately affects people of color.
Now cities including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Virginia state are taking steps to limit police from stopping drivers for trivial violations such as dangling air fresheners, recently expired tags and documents, and burned-out bulbs, according to Bloomberg.
“Those jurisdictions have recognized there’s really no benefit to requiring officers to conduct these stops,” said Akhi Johnson, a former prosecutor and the director of the Vera Institute’s Reshaping Prosecution Initiative. “These stops don’t make us safer, perpetuate disparities in who gets pulled into the criminal legal system, and unnecessarily put officers in harm’s way.”
READ MORE: Lawmakers, Consider This: Abolish Traffic Stops and Stop Criminalizing Everything!
Per Bloomberg: “Cities including Oakland and Berkeley in California have gone as far as proposing non-police responses to traffic violations, but those plans have yet to gain traction,” the outlet writes.
Here’s more from the report:
Last year, Philadelphia became the first city to make eight low-level offenses, like having a missing bumper or an item hanging from a rearview mirror, insufficient cause for pulling someone over.
Last month, San Francisco became the latest city to follow Philadelphia’s model. On Jan. 11, its police commission, the policymaking body for the San Francisco Police Department, voted to prohibit stops for nine violations that data showed only led to gun recoveries and arrests less than 2% of the time.
“Reducing the number of stops made for low-level offenses will allow the Department to redirect resources and time to more effective public safety strategies, including prioritizing traffic safety to reduce injuries and fatalities,” the policy reads, “while also helping to fulfill its obligation to accord every person equal treatment under the law.”
“I’ve been pulled over as an educator, a political candidate, a government employee, and even after winning the Democratic nomination,” Philly city councilmember Isaiah Thomas, wrote in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Tribune.
“We still have more work to do as it relates to addressing this issue of driving while Black,” said Thomas. “No matter how much body camera footage we have, or what laws are put in place, until we see some serious systemic change, these incidents are unfortunately going to continue to happen.”
“Our view was that if you reduce the number of unnecessary interactions between police and community, then you’re necessarily going to reduce the opportunities for use of force or injustice at the hands of police,” said Brad Haywood, a public defender and the founder of the criminal justice reform group Justice Forward Virginia. “If you try to reduce those interactions, you’re also going to reduce racial disparities at large.”
As a former prosecutor, I know that there are prosecutors and police officers who firmly believe that these steps are necessary for public safety, but that’s just not what we see in the data,” said Johnson.
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