A citizens board should review Raleigh police
On Tuesday, Sept. 4, Raleigh City Council will meet at 7 p.m. and will be asked to listen to the people’s increasing concerns with Raleigh policing. Statistics indicate black drivers in Raleigh are 270 percent more likely to be consent searched than white drivers during routine traffic stops. In 2018, people of color and those who are economically disadvantaged have continued to be “arrested for resisting arrests” during routine traffic stops. During one routine stop in January, a black man died from a suspected drug overdose while being arrested.
These cases speak to the fact that racial profiling happens with impunity in Raleigh where police are policing themselves inside RPD’s Internal Affairs Department. As a grassroots organization, Raleigh’s Police Accountability Community Taskforce (PACT) remains concerned about this reality and will be there Tuesday night asking city officials to support legislation for an unbiased external community oversight board with the power to subpoena, investigate and hold police accountable.
Even if the city decides to support a bill in favor of a new oversight board, the change may not win its necessary approval from the state legislature. However, fear of failure is not a good reason for elected officials to fail to introduce just legislation. Especially in today’s political climate where people feel helpless and angry.
By introducing legislation to protect people of color from the systemic injustice of racial profiling, legislators not only offer people an opportunity to turn raw feelings of anger and fear into political empowerment and action. They also give them a chance to start over in life with a new sense of themselves as fellow human beings who are allowed to benefit from being endowed by their creator with the same birthrights each of us has.
In case politicians doubt the power of hope that’s found in community with others who believe in each person’s right to justice, Raleigh PACT is happy to be working with other grassroots organizations who will be at Raleigh’s City Council meeting on Tuesday night. Because we know Bishop William Barber II said our nation has a heart problem, all of us are reaching out to people of faith in the larger community of Raleigh. What everyone shares in common is an understanding that love becomes manifest in our world when laws reflect love for our neighbors, as we love ourselves.
Because police brutality only decreases to the extent that transparency and accountability increase in policing, we will be calling on Mayor Nancy McFarlane and Raleigh City Council members the day after Labor Day. United together, we will ask them to provide the poor and working class in our city with a pathway to justice. People’s lives depend on their support for legislation that provides an external unbiased community oversight board with the power to subpoena, investigate and hold Raleigh police accountable to those they’ve promised to protect and to serve.
This story was originally published September 4, 2018 at 3:00 AM.