Carrboro bans chokeholds, postpones filling police vacancies

The Carrboro Town Council banned police chokeholds and agreed to create a public safety panel to explore policing alternatives, among other measures Thursday night.

The council also passed a wide-ranging resolution on advancing racial equity in law enforcement and public safety, written by council members Damon Seils, Randee Haven-O’Donnell and Sammy Slade.

Amid a national call by some activists to defund or disinvent in police departments, the council also delayed filling two vacant officer positions “pending further discussion about budgetary and public safety needs,” according to the resolution. The council is scheduled to adopt the town budget for the coming fiscal year Tuesday.

The two police positions would cost the town more than $100,000 per year.

The vote for the delay was 6-2, with Mayor Lydia Lavelle and council member Jacquelyn Gist voting no.

Initially, it looked like the council would allow the positions to be filled. Then council member Sammy Slade said he would vote against the entire resolution if it did not include a delay.

“Money is where the rubber hits the road,” he said.

Seils then proposed a split vote on the resolution, breaking off the delay on filling the vacancies.

The vote on the rest of the resolution was unanimous.

“Whereas Black Lives Matter,” the resolution begins.

It goes on to say Police Chief Walter Horton has already taken several steps toward achieving bias-free policing.

The council made it clear it has no problems with Horton or his officers. The council also agreed the town’s per capita spending on police and public safety is low compared with other municipalities.

The resolution formalizes a plan to create a task force “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,’ ” the resolution states.

The plan is to get that task force going after the summer recess.

Gist suggested adding a social worker to the task force, which the council adopted. A social worker could assist with the public but also with officers, she said, bringing “social-work sensibilities” to the police force.

The resolution forbids police use of chokeholds or strangleholds, “broadly defined to include all maneuvers that involve choking, holding the neck, or cutting off blood flow in the neck.”

Last month, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. There has been unrest across the nation since, including widespread calls to defund police departments, meaning anything from cutting all police funds to transferring some funds from departments to social services.

“I feel like this is an extraordinary moment we are living through,” council member Susan Romaine said. There has been a recent outpouring of concern about the police from the community, Romaine added.

This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 5:24 PM.