The Town of Carrboro passed a resolution enacting changes to its police department’s policies, reform largely reflecting the requests of community members advocating for racial equity in treatment by law enforcement and the ending of police brutality.

The Carrboro Town Council passed the resolution on Thursday in a special meeting carried over from its one on Tuesday. Stating “black lives matter” and the community’s concern as reasoning for the legislation, the measure revises Carrboro Police Department’s use of force policies while also establishing policy goals of reaching zero racial and ethnic disparities in both searches and arrests from traffic stops.

While departmental policies of de-escalation, requiring officers to stop others from using excessive force and mandatory reports any time use-of-force is deployed were already in place, the town council made further changes. Thursday’s resolution prohibits the use of chokeholds or strangleholds as a policing tactic, which were used by Minneapolis police officers and ultimately resulted in the death of George Floyd. It also established town policy that use of deadly force against individuals is limited only to necessary situations, like self-defense or defense of others against an imminent deadly threat.

While there have been no reports of clashes between law enforcement and protesters in recent demonstrations, the Carrboro Town Council also banned the use of specialized impact munitions, like rubber bullets, or chemical agents on people exercising their First Amendment rights.

At Thursday’s meeting, the town council also discussed the police department’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. While there are few decreases in the proposed budget, the new resolution requests the town manager postpone filling any vacant positions currently within the Police Department “pending further discussion about budgetary and public safety needs.”

In addition, Carrboro requested the town manager resume providing quarterly “race and policing reports” on its department’s interactions with the community starting this summer. Past reports have examined metrics like arrests, overall stop rates, demographic information, residency tracking and reasons for stops. The reports will be available to all members of the public on the town’s website 

The town council also shared its intentions to establish a task force on public safety to explore the development of new approaches to public safety beyond traditional policing. This includes the moving away from using school resource officers, which the town plans to explore with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools system.

To read the full resolution passed by the Carrboro Town Council, click here.

Photo via the Carrboro Police Department.

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