"MPD must take care to ensure that the benefits of every stop, search, arrest, and use of force outweigh the anguish such encounters cause - that, in every encounter, officers are doing more good than harm," it added. "Much of what has been normalized and accepted as necessary in policing does not answer genuine public safety needs but rather reflects the often-unthinking perpetuation of a system designed to control and exploit, rather than empower and nurture people - especially Black and Latinx people." "Not only is policing inadequate on its own to keep people safe, it too often causes undue harm in the precise communities it is nominally meant to protect," the report's introduction says. Council, released a report earlier this month with the aim to "improve or find alternatives to policing in the District." The commission, which was established by the D.C. While some elected officials say there's merit to the idea, others say there also needs to be a thorough study of the consequences of the change. That's now the case in D.C., where the Police Reform Commission created in the wake of last summer's racial justice protests has recommended that traffic enforcement be taken out of the hands of police and be moved to the D.C. If you run a red light or drive too fast, you might see the flashing lights of a police car in your rearview mirror.īut as cities and states across the country grapple with ongoing and increasingly public incidents of violent police interactions - largely impacting Black, Latino, and other minority communities - some activists and lawmakers are starting to ask whether police should even be responsible for those types of traffic stops. In D.C., Black people make up 76.4% of all traffic stops, according to data from the Police Reform Commission.
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