SAN FRANCISCO – After hours of emotional public testimony and a midnight vote by Berkeley leaders, the progressive city of California is moving forward with a new proposal to replace police with unarmed civilians during traffic stops in an attempt to reduce racial profile.
The City Council approved a police reform proposal Wednesday morning calling for a public committee to analyze the details of a new Berkeley Police Department that would not respond to calls involving people living on the street or suffering from mental diseases. The committee would also seek to create a separate department to handle transportation planning and enforce parking and traffic laws.
The council voted for the committee to find ways to cut the Police Department’s budget in half and approved an analysis of police calls and spending.
Tired but excited Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said he doesn’t expect a new transportation department overnight because the talks will be difficult and detailed with complicated logistics to deal with. But he said that communities of color in his city feel attacked by the police and that this must change.
“There may be situations where the police need to intervene, so we must analyze all of that,” he said. “We need to look at whether we get the traffic application out of the Police Department, what that relationship looks like and how will police officers work in coordination with unarmed traffic control personnel?”
The plan to separate police from traffic from police is believed to be the first of its kind in the US, and comes as many cities seek comprehensive public security reforms, including reducing law enforcement budgets. public, after the death of George Floyd on May 25 at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Fans of the proposal applauded its approval even as some called for further cuts to the police.
It could take months, even years, to create a new department, but the police and other law enforcement experts chastised the idea as dangerous, not only for traffic safety but also for those charged with arresting drivers, who they say they can be dangerous.
“I think what Berkeley is doing is crazy,” said Mark Cronin, director of the Los Angeles Police Protection League, a union for officers. “I think it is a great social experiment. I think it is going to fail and not go unfortunately. Traffic collisions and deaths are increasing exponentially.”
Cronin, a former traffic officer, said cities cannot rely on unattended traffic signals or camera lights to catch bad drivers and that it takes people to educate motorists about safe driving. But those people also need reinforcements and the authority to arrest if they encounter an intoxicated, armed and fleeing driver of a crime, or seek him on other charges.
“Traffic stops are one of the most unpredictable and therefore dangerous duties of law enforcement. There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop and performing them effectively and safely takes months of police training in and out of an academy, “said Frank Merenda, former captain of the New York City Police Department, assistant professor of criminal justice at the Marist College.
Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, called the idea “an overly simplistic plan that could have deadly consequences for unarmed traffic control officers.”
Nine American police officers have been killed during traffic stops so far this year, according to data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund. Six were shot and three were hit by vehicles.
Numerous studies have shown that black drivers are much more likely to be stopped by the police than whites for minor traffic offenses, and the results can sometimes be deadly for the driver.
Philando Castile, for example, was shot dead after the 32-year-old was stopped by a broken tail light in 2016 in Minnesota. Sandra Bland, 28, died in a jail cell three days after being detained for failing to indicate when she changed lanes in Texas in 2015.
The largely prosperous and progressive suburb of San Francisco, with 120,000 inhabitants, has led the country in environmental, cultural and equity issues, but has still distorted the numbers of traffic stops.
A 2018 report by the Center for Policing Equity, a Los Angeles-based advocacy and research group, found that black and Latino drivers were detained by Berkeley police at higher rates than whites.
Analysis of data by the Stanford Open Police Project at Stanford University also found that black and Latino drivers were searched much more frequently than whites, but the searches yielded fewer drugs, weapons and other contraband.
Berkeley police released a statement Wednesday saying the department would work with the community “to determine how we can best evolve to fulfill our mission to safeguard our community.”
The Los Angeles, San Francisco and San José police unions issued a statement opposing the proposal. The Berkeley Police Union did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Arreguín, the mayor, said creating a new department is a phase two development that is at least a year away and is likely to involve making changes to state law.
Traffic stops can be dangerous and require extensive training, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Investigation Forum, an investigative organization that promotes police best practices. It also recognizes that justice and profiling are issues for law enforcement.
“At the end of the day, policymakers would have to wonder if this change met its intended goals,” he said.