Category Archives: policing

A Resolution on Advancing Next Steps in Racial Equity in Law Enforcement and Public Safety in Carrboro

WHEREAS, Black Lives Matter; and 

WHEREAS, on June 9, 2020, the Town Council requested that Council Members Haven-O’Donnell, Seils, and Slade draft a resolution addressing next steps in advancing racial equity in law enforcement and public safety; and 

WHEREAS, appreciating the diligence of the manager and the department heads in preparing a budget that aims to avoid increases in expenditures in anticipation of an economic downturn, the Town Council also asked that the manager provide more information about the recommended budget for fiscal year 2021, including details about the proposed 6.6 percent increase in the Police Department budget and options for lessening proposed increases; and 

WHEREAS, in May 2015, the Orange County Bias Free Policing Coalition (“Coalition”) submitted a report, “Policing Reform Recommendations,” to the Carrboro Town Council, the Chapel Hill Town Council, and the Orange County Board of Commissioners; and 

WHEREAS, the Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Walter Horton, provides a high level of service to and receives high marks from Carrboro residents, and has taken important steps toward achieving the Coalition’s goals for bias-free policing, including confirming the existence of or newly adopting the following policies and practices: written policies explicitly prohibiting racial profiling; periodic reviews of data on law enforcement officers’ motor vehicle stops, searches, and arrests; requirement to obtain written consent for consensual searches; use of dashboard-mounted and body-worn cameras; designation of marijuana-related enforcement as a low priority; deemphasis of regulatory and equipment-related motor vehicle stops; reports of enforcement data disaggregated by race and ethnicity; and racial equity training for officers; and 

WHEREAS, in October 2015, the Campaign for Racial Equity in Our Schools submitted a report, “Excellence With Equity: The Schools Our Children Deserve,” to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education; and 

WHEREAS, in October 2018, the Town Council authorized the Town to become a “core member” of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a commitment to advance racial equity across all functions and levels of municipal government; and 

WHEREAS, on June 9, 2020, Governor Roy Cooper issued Executive Order No. 145, establishing the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, which will “develop and help implement solutions that will eliminate disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system for communities of color”; and 

WHEREAS, “Carrboro citizens are vocal in their concern for each other”; and “the town should continue to look for unmet needs,” “continue to support human service needs that are above and beyond those met by the County,” “consider the impact of its ordinances and policies on the well-being of its most vulnerable citizens,” “continue to provide a high level of police, public works and fire service,” and “continue its efforts towards community building by encouraging the use of facilitation and conflict resolution” (Carrboro Vision 2020); 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 

SECTION 1. GOALS; REPORTS REQUESTED

  1. The Town Council hereby establishes the following policy goals relating to racial equity and public safety: 
  • zero racial and ethnic disparities in motor vehicle stops; 
  • zero racial and ethnic disparities in searches resulting from motor vehicle stops; 
  • zero racial and ethnic disparities in citations and arrests resulting from motor vehicle stops; 
  • zero racial and ethnic disparities in uses of force; and 
  • zero arrests for low-level marijuana-related offenses.
  1. Consistent with recommendations and responses from the Coalition, the Town Council asks the manager to resume in summer 2020 providing quarterly “race and policing reports,” including but not limited to overall stop rates, demographic information, residency tracking, reasons for stops, equipment and regulatory violations, number of searches, types of searches (e.g., consensual, probable cause), number of requests denied for written consent for searches, citations, arrests, uses of force, and complaints, to the extent publicly disclosable by law.
  1. The Town Council asks the manager to provide a report describing calls for service from the Police Department and the Fire-Rescue Department.
  1. In the interest of promoting transparency, the Town Council asks the manager to make available on the Town’s website the reports listed above, the Coalition’s responses to those reports, and the Town’s responses to the Coalition.
  1. The Town Council asks the manager to share the policy goals and reports listed above, and information about the work of the Town’s GARE team, with the Town’s Comprehensive Plan Task Force, which is currently being formed.

SECTION 2. USE OF FORCE

  1. The Town Council recognizes that the number of use-of-force incidents in the Police Department is low and that officers’ decisions about use of force must be guided by concern for the safety of themselves and others and must be tactically and legally sound.
  1. The Town Council is grateful to the police chief for responding to residents’ and council members’ inquiries about use-of-force policies by confirming that the following departmental policies are in effect: 
  • require officers to de-escalate situations when possible; 
  • require officers to intervene and stop excessive force used by other officers and report these incidents to a supervisor; 
  • establish a force continuum that restricts the most severe types of force to the most extreme situations; and 
  • require officers to report each time they use force or threaten to use force.
  1. The Town Council hereby establishes that it is Town policy that the use of chokeholds and strangleholds—broadly defined to include all maneuvers that involve choking, holding the neck, or cutting off blood flow in the neck—is prohibited as a policing tactic.
  1. The Town Council hereby establishes that it is Town policy that officers must provide a verbal warning, when practicable, before using deadly force. The Town Council affirms that officers’ decisions must remain safe and tactically sound.
  1. The Town Council hereby establishes that it is Town policy that the use of deadly force against individuals (including individuals in moving vehicles or on foot) is limited to situations where it is necessary for self-defense or defense of others against an imminent deadly threat or threat of serious bodily injury. Chapter 5 of the Police Department’s Policy and Procedure Manual (revised February 1, 2020) is consistent with this policy.
  1. The Town Council hereby establishes that it is Town policy that the use of specialized impact munitions (as defined in Chapter 5, Section II.H) or chemical agents on crowds or persons exercising their First Amendment rights is prohibited.
  2. The Town Council hereby establishes that it is Town policy that the hiring of anyone who has previously been either (1) disciplined in a law enforcement role for use of excessive force or (2) accused multiple times of use of excessive force through citizen complaints or personnel reports, regardless of whether the department disciplined the individual, is prohibited.

SECTION 3. SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS

The Town Council asks the manager to request information from the superintendent of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools about the status of the following recommendations from the “Excellence With Equity” report submitted to the Board of Education in October 2015: 

  • “Complete the revisions discussed by the School Board and adopt immediately the Memorandum of Understanding between the District and local police departments regarding the role of School Resource Officers (SROs) that has been under development and consideration for the last 18 months” (page 73).
  • “Develop a plan to replace SROs with school-based programs that have been shown to increase safety and security” (page 73).

SECTION 4. BUDGET

  1. The Town Council asks the manager to postpone filling the currently vacant position(s) in the Police Department, pending further discussion about budgetary and public safety needs.
  1. The Town Council asks the manager to allocate $7500 in fiscal year 2020-2021 for a contribution to the Town of Chapel Hill’s Criminal Justice Debt Program to expand program eligibility to Carrboro residents.

SECTION 5. INTENT TO ESTABLISH A PUBLIC SAFETY TASK FORCE

  1. The Town Council intends to establish a task force on public safety, in the interest of developing new approaches to public safety beyond policing and of investing in what scholar and community organizer Patrisse Cullors has called an “economy of care.”
  1. The task force will consider a range of issues related to public safety, including but not limited to law enforcement practices; the possibility of police social worker positions; alternatives to assigning responsibilities for human service needs to the Town’s public safety departments; and coordination with the County and other jurisdictional partners to increase investments in programs and services that keep communities healthy and safe through budget reallocations and additional funding.
  1. The Town Council recognizes that investments in public safety and in programs and services that keep communities healthy and safe must advance racial equity, be grounded in community demands, and be informed by authentic engagement with grassroots and community organizations.
  1. The Town Council asks the manager to schedule a work session, after the summer recess, to enable the Town Council to develop a charge for the task force, consider a timeline for its work, and identify resources to enable it to be successful.

This the 18th day of June, 2020.

Latest Notes on Carrboro Policing

In a previous post, I discussed the important policy and training work that the Carrboro Police Department has done over the past year. Some of this work—such as developing a policy for the use of police cameras—predates the latest national wave of attention on law enforcement issues. Other work by the department is underway in response to questions and concerns that community members shared during the town’s October community forum on policing.

(I neglected to mention in my last post that the department also spent the past year training officers in the use of naloxone kits to reverse effects of heroin and other opiate overdoses. This initiative has already saved a life in Carrboro, the first such incident in North Carolina. It’s a good example of the department’s human services model of policing and another demonstration of Carrboro leading the way.)

Today I’m writing to provide an update on early progress on items in my previous summary and to share some notes from three meetings I attended recently.

First, a Few Updates

  • In early December, Police Chief Walter Horton and both police captains attended an Organizing Against Racism racial equity workshop. The department is exploring opportunities for future training opportunities for administrative staff.
  • The department is partnering with other law enforcement agencies in Orange and Durham Counties to enroll officers in the Fair and Impartial Policing “train the trainer” program, tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2015.
  • The department is working with Orange County public defender James Williams and civil rights attorney Ian Mance of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to develop reports for tracking data in the department’s record-keeping system. Also, at James Williams’s suggestion, the department has been in contact with the UCLA Center for Policing Equity to make arrangements for review of the department’s data.
  • The department is planning another community forum on policing for June 2015.
  • The department is in contact with the Durham Police Department to obtain information about its recently adopted policy to require written consent for searches.
  • Finally, I expect that the Board of Aldermen will consider including body-worn police cameras in the town’s budget for the next fiscal year.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Forum

I was pleased to be able to attend a forum on January 3 at the Rogers Road Community Center hosted by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Branch of the North Carolina NAACP. The forum, moderated by Carrboro activist Diane Robertson, featured a question-and-answer session with Chief Horton, Chief Chris Blue of Chapel Hill, and Sheriff Charles Blackwood.

A good summary of the event is available on OrangePolitics. A complete audio recording is available at Chapelboro.com.

The forum reaffirmed for me the central importance of acknowledging, understanding, and addressing racial disparities in law enforcement. Attendees of the forum also expressed interest in greater transparency related to law enforcement agency policies (for example, policies on the use of force) and procedures for filing and resolving complaints.

Meeting With Residents

Also on January 3, Alderwoman Michelle Johnson and I had the opportunity to meet with two Carrboro residents, Geoff Gilson and Amanda Ashley, who have been paying close attention to policing issues and advocating for changes in policing policies and methods.

As in the NAACP forum, an important feature of our conversation was transparency. We talked about the possibility of making existing policies more readily available. Questions related to whether policies could be published on the town website; rules of engagement and policies on the use of force; and the process for investigating uses of force (specifically, deadly force).

We also discussed bringing greater structure to ongoing efforts to engage the community in shaping law enforcement policy, and being clearer about next steps so that community members know about opportunities for participation. For example, we talked about formalizing the structure of upcoming community forums, particularly in relation to making the forums goal-oriented and requiring a follow-up report to the Board of Aldermen after each forum.

Shortly after the October community forum, the police chief raised the idea of focusing each subsequent forum on a particular policing topic. I like the idea of devoting forums to particular topics, identifying important questions and concerns on the basis of community participation in those forums, setting clear goals, and measuring and reporting outcomes. Stay tuned for the next forum, tentatively planned for June 2015.

UNC Law School Conference

Finally, on January 23, I was able to attend most of a daylong program on policing at the UNC School of Law. The conference, “Police Violence in the Wake of Ferguson and Staten Island,” was sponsored by the UNC Law Clinical Programs and the UNC Center for Civil Rights. (For a collection of tweets from the conference, including my own, check out the #UNC2Ferguson hashtag on Twitter.)

Speaker after remarkable speaker at the conference—scholars, lawyers, civil rights activists, and community organizers—offered insights into the racialized history of law enforcement in the United States, troubling overviews of traffic stop data in North Carolina municipalities (including dramatic numbers from Carrboro), and strategies for reducing racial disparities in policing.

A few links:

I was glad to hear speakers talk not only about history and context, but also about solutions. Sherillyn Ifill offered three thoughts:

  • Implicit bias training for law enforcement officers and other people in positions of public trust. This training should be seen as a part of the professionalism of policing.
  • Body-worn cameras.
  • Don’t simply stop implementing bad policies and making bad investments. Undertake policy changes and make investments that reverse the negative effects of previous and existing policies and investments.

Mark-Anthony Middleton, a pastor and community organizer, spoke about recent successes in Durham:

  • mandatory periodic review of traffic stop data;
  • mandatory racial equity training;
  • less emphasis on enforcement of marijuana-related violations; and
  • mandatory written consent for consensual searches of vehicles and homes.

These approaches are good starting points for discussion, and most are already under consideration in Carrboro. Please continue to be in touch with the Board of Aldermen at boa@townofcarrboro.org if you have thoughts about policing and other issues. We want and need to hear from you.

Next Steps in Carrboro Policing

Renewed focus on law enforcement after yet more instances of police violence around the country—most notably in Ferguson, Missouri—has brought many of us together to consider a local response. A variety of steps by the Town of Carrboro in the past year present a good opportunity to catalog some of the work going on with our Police Department. Most important is a set of first steps being taken by town staff, informed by conversation with community members in a recent community forum, which I summarize below. I then describe a few other items of interest related to Carrboro (and Orange County) policing. My fellow board members and I welcome your thoughts about these issues. You can reach us by e-mail at boa@townofcarrboro.org.

Community Forum and Next Steps

On October 6, the town hosted a forum to hear community members’ concerns, questions, and ideas about policing in Carrboro. Several dozen community members attended the forum. Police Chief Walter Horton, the town manager, several other members of town staff, and members of the Board of Aldermen were also present.

On November 18, in follow-up to the forum, Chief Horton presented a report to the Board of Aldermen in which he identified the major themes that emerged during the forum on the basis of attendees’ comments: racial equity training, racial profiling and bias, fear of police by people of color, community and citizen engagement, and restorative justice. (Agenda materials and video from the meeting are available on the town website.)

Chief Horton identified several actions as a first step in addressing the issues raised in the forum. These actions include:

  • racial equity training of police personnel;
  • improved records management and statistical data and work with the public defender’s office to identify racial profiling and alter policing methods accordingly;
  • targeted conversations with specific community groups, especially young people of color; and
  • additional community engagement activities, including at least 2 community forums per year, the next tentatively scheduled for June 2015.

In addition to the actions identified in Chief Horton’s report, the Board of Aldermen directed the staff to include the following items in their next update:

  • update on participation of the chief and the captains in the Organizing Against Racism program;
  • update on participation in the Fair and Impartial Policing program, including cooperation with other local police departments;
  • update on the potential for implementing a citizens’ police academy;
  • update on further conversations and work with the Orange County public defender’s office, including improvements to the Police Department’s record keeping and statistics reporting;
  • update on planning for the next community forum or listening session, possibly in June 2015;
  • information about the City of Durham’s recent adoption of a requirement to obtain written consent for searches and what such a policy might look like in Carrboro;
  • information about how the Police Department’s law enforcement resources are currently allocated in terms of the share of arrests, citations, etc for different kinds of incidents;
  • plan to include in upcoming budget discussions the possibility of staff-wide racial equity training;
  • update on a follow-up with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools about student safety concerns in the schools;
  • information about a potential forum or conversation with persons interested in discussing domestic violence; and
  • information about other resources or support the Police Department may need from the Board.

Stay tuned for coming opportunities to shape policing policy in our town, including additional community forums, departmental outreach efforts to neighborhoods and community groups, and more.

Other Issues

There’s more going on in our local law enforcement world, some of which I summarize below.

  • I’ll begin with an exciting development that came up this week. During Monday’s meeting of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, Commissioner Mark Dorosin petitioned the board to work with newly elected Sheriff Charles Blackwood on a gun buyback program for the county. Sheriff Blackwood confirmed that he is interested in initiating such a program. When I spoke with the sheriff after the meeting, he raised the idea of a joint program with the Town of Carrboro and other municipalities. Stay tuned.
  • In July, the Police Department launched the Police to Citizen (P2C) incident reporting system, which enables public access to police incident reports, arrest reports, and traffic crash reports. P2C allows users to search, map, download, and print police reports.
  • In June 2013, the Board of Aldermen approved the purchase of in-car cameras for police vehicles. The cameras went into use this fall after several months of work with the Police Department, legal staff of the ACLU of North Carolina, and others to develop a policy that addresses concerns about the cameras’ proper use. The mobile recording system policy addresses when the cameras are activated and deactivated, access to and retention of recordings, disciplinary actions for violations of the policy, and more. I hope that this comprehensive policy can become a model for other communities in North Carolina.
  • Finally, some community members (including the police chief) have expressed interest in acquiring body-worn cameras for police officers. The Board of Aldermen will likely consider this issue in the next budget cycle. An important concern for me in this decision is the same concern I expressed about dashboard cameras: having an appropriate policy governing their use. The Police Department has already begun drafting such a policy, similar to the in-car camera policy, in consultation with the ACLU of North Carolina and others. I’m interested in knowing your thoughts about whether body cameras are the way to go for Carrboro. Meanwhile, below is a collection of tweets from Seth Stoughton (@policelawprof)—a former police officer and now assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina—regarding the benefits and limitations of body cameras. (Thanks to Bethany Chaney [@Chaney4Carrboro] for the tip.)