As peaceful protests push police reform, all eyes on City Council meeting

CHARLOTTE — Police around the country, including here in Charlotte, have taken a less aggressive stance and even at times joined protesters demanding a reckoning with institutional racism.

It has been two weeks since George Floyd, a black man, died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes.

Floyd’s death has led to a national debate on police reform. The Congressional Black Caucus is proposing a police reform bill, which includes anti-lynching provisions and creates a national police misconduct registry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the bill aims to bring an end to racial profiling, excessive use of force, and qualified immunity for police officers.

In the Queen City, two members of City Council will push Monday night for changes to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s policy.

All eyes are on Monday night's City Council meeting, where councilmember Braxton Winston is expected to introduce a series of changes.

Winston said he wants to ensure CMPD won’t have funds to purchase things like tear gas and pepper balls. His plans are a response to a video that protesters said shows CMPD officers cornering protesters then using tear gas on them.

Winston’s plan would also create an oversight committee to analyze police spending and policies.

Councilman Larken Egleston will also ask the council to adopt a police reform initiative called “8 Can’t Wait.” It would ban chokeholds, require de-escalation, and require officers to report all force.

Charlotte City Council is expected to vote on a resolution that condemns the killing of George Floyd. The resolution also asks the city manager to make sure CMPD follows the 8 Can’t Wait initiative.

Some protesters claim police departments are overfunded and militarized and have traumatized generations of people. Many protesters gathered outside the Government Center Monday, calling for CMPD to be defunded in its entirety. No councilmember is proposing that.

Monday’s meeting begins at 5 p.m. at the Government Center. An hour later, the NAACP will hold a rally to address the recent tactics used during protests. That rally begins at 6 p.m. at the Government Center.

At 6:45 p.m., protesters will march around CMPD headquarters and the county jail and courthouse, eventually wrapping up at Marshall Park.

At 5 p.m., when the City Council meeting gets underway, there will also be a Black Lives Matter to Public Defenders event at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse.

Charlotte’s interfaith clergy holds 'die-In’ to demand change in policing policies

On Monday morning, Charlotte's interfaith clergy held a "die-in," calling for an end to deadly shootings of unarmed black men and women. They said now is the time to restructure the police force.

People gathered and stood alongside the city's interfaith clergy, demanding change in policing policies. During the “die-in” people laid on the ground -- white clergy holding pictures of black men and women who have died.

It was a powerful visual, as other clergy read a list of demands to Charlotte City Council and CMPD, including City Council ensuring that residents and clergy are to be involved in the hiring of Charlotte’s next police chief -- though the city has already named deputy chief Johnny Jennings to that role -- as well as City Council defunding and abolishing the use of tear gas, pepper balls, pepper spray and other chemical agents by CMPD.

One of the organizers Channel 9 spoke with on Monday reiterated that the policing climate needs to change.

“That climate needs to change, you cannot live a healthy life under than kind of stress every day,” Rev. Glencie Rhedrick, co-chair for Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice said. “Black and brown people are stressed beyond. We’re really hoping that the mayor, the city manager, the city council members and the police chief and the whole entire department heard us and know that we are not going to stop until those demands are met.”

As peaceful protests push police reform, all eyes on City Council meeting As peaceful protests push police reform, all eyes on City Council meeting

Charlotte Interfaith Clergy Ethical Policing Demands to The Charlotte City Council and CMPD

1. City Council will ensure that residents and clergy are to be officially and prominently involved in the hiring of Charlotte’s next Police Chief.

2. City Council will bar Kerr Putney, and any other Chief of Police from even suggestively promoting his/her/their own successor.

3. City Council and CMPD will end Qualified Immunity in police-involved shootings and killings of our unarmed neighbors.

4. City Council will outlaw and CMPD will immediately cease any military-based training of administrative or junior officers by foreign powers.

5. CMPD will outlaw the practice of restraining arrested persons with hands behind the back and face-down in police vehicles.

6. CMPD will immediately end “Kettling” as a tactic against peaceful crowds.

7. City Council will de-fund and abolish the use of tear gas, pepper balls, pepper spray and other chemical agents by CMPD.

8. City Council and City Manager will re-direct all money de-funded from CMPD to Social Justice causes which demonstrably aid social determinants of health and other causes which create economic, educational and social equity between black neighbors and white neighbors.

9. City Council and CMPD will end the 1035 Program

• End immediately transfers to CMPD of military equipment by Congress.
• De-commission and immediately destroy all existing stockpiles of such equipment.

10. City Council will implement swift and stringent fines against people who fraudulently make emergency calls to police about black people.

11. CMPD will refuse to retain any officer found guilty of violent misconduct including:

• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who accumulate three excessive force complaints
• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who kill an unarmed neighbor
• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who fail to keep body cameras on during any engagement with a resident
• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who tamper with or otherwise disable soon-to-be installed holster triggers for body camera activation

12. CMPD will suspend, without pay, and refuse to retain officers who fail to comply with CMPD’s “Duty to Report” policy.

13. Council and CMPD will make meetings of the Civil Service Board public in cases of the killing of unarmed our unarmed neighbors.

14. Council, Commissioners and CMPD will ensure that no more than 10% of members of the Civil Service Board will be retired or active-duty CMPD officers, administrators or their families.

15. CMPD will abolish the practice of “Internal Policing” in police-involved murder of our unarmed neighbors. All police-involved killings of a person must first be investigated by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and FBI.

16. CMPD will abolish the practice of transferring officers accused of violent misconduct to other posts requiring contact with the public until the accusation is either cleared or the officer’s guilt has been established.

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