Berkeley Moves Closer to Ending Police Traffic Stops

Great news for criminals.  If you want to steal, rob or assault someone, Berkeley is the place to get away with it.  Once you are in your car you are in basically a sanctuary and the cops can do very little to stop you from getting away.

“On Tuesday evening, Berkeley city council unanimously approved a package of reforms that included city officials – Berkeley Police Department Chief Andrew Greenwood, who said at a special meeting – were possible in the near term, while he knew how to make massive changes.

The reform requires city officials not to ban drivers from stopping for safety-related offenses, such as for broken taillights or rolling through a stop sign if no one is around, and police Will bar officers from asking about parole and probation status. Under most circumstances.

The reforms include the need for written consent for searches in cases where consent is necessary, and the creation of greater transparency measures in police interactions with members of the public.”

Watch as two things happen in this fascist paradise.  First crime will go up and arrests go down.  Second, even the most Progressive people will leave, to protect themselves from criminals.  Why is California in a Depression and in a death spiral?  Look at Berkeley.

Berkeley Moves Closer to Ending Police Traffic Stops

Aand, 2/24/21 

Last summer after Californians stirred the streets of cities across the state to protest police brutality and racism, elected leaders pledged to implement reforms.

The Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, pledged to transfer $ 250 million from city departments – including a $ 150 million deduction from the police department – to move to communities of color. The Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, in June unveiled a four-point blueprint to combat racism and how the city’s police department addresses mental health and homelessness.

But progress on those goals has been varied over the months, not only within California, but across the country. And different courts have adopted different approaches.

Extensive calls to defeat the police, for example, have led school leaders in some cities to reduce the presence of armed police officers in the hallways. This month, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to cut its police force and instead invested millions of dollars in programs for students of color and other measures that would have been spent on armed security, as student activists Gave a push to discredit the department.

But in Berkeley, known for its progressive politics, city officials this week went on to reveal the meaningful changes they hope will make the city a model in addressing racial disparities in policing – a focus on the police department’s budget Without being centered.

“I think it is a mistake to use the word ‘defund’,” the Mayor of Berkeley, Jesse Areguine, told me on Tuesday. “What we are focusing on is changing our approach to public safety and is part of a whole broader effort to find out what the role of police in our community is and how they are best deployed Can go? “

In July, as my colleague Kellen Browning pointed out, Berkeley considered it the first city in the country to plan to ban police officers from operating traffic stops and transfer that responsibility to unarmed members of the Department of Transportation.

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On Tuesday evening, Berkeley city council unanimously approved a package of reforms that included city officials – Berkeley Police Department Chief Andrew Greenwood, who said at a special meeting – were possible in the near term, while he Knew how to make massive changes.

The reform requires city officials not to ban drivers from stopping for safety-related offenses, such as for broken taillights or rolling through a stop sign if no one is around, and police Will bar officers from asking about parole and probation status. Under most circumstances.

The reforms include the need for written consent for searches in cases where consent is necessary, and the creation of greater transparency measures in police interactions with members of the public.

[Find the recommendations in more detail here.]

Experts have long said that traffic stops, the most common interactions Americans have with police, adversely affect black drivers. And police officers often have a wide discretion to pull people over in the “excuse goes off”, meaning they can stop a driver for a small violation so they can ask other questions.

A report by the Center for Policing Equity found that black people are 6.5 times more likely than black people to drive while driving by the Berkeley Police Department and 4.5 times more likely to walk on foot.

Mr. Arreguin said instructing officials to spend less time preventing people for violations, which does not affect broader public safety and more time in investigating more serious crimes, will build trust and enable the department more efficiently Will run

Nathan Mizell, a student at UC Berkeley, said the city’s police leaders worked on the mayor’s working group developing the approved recommendations on Tuesday.

“I think it’s a really important step,” Mr. Mizell said. “This is one that is long overdue.”