Do you feel loved traffic stop policy
is sufficient to keep our streets safe?
And do you think that routine traffic
stops provide good opportunities for
police to reduce crime by finding
potentially illegal substances
or items in a person's car?
Because there was a policy change,
I believe it was in 2019 surrounding
traffic stops, so it was really
interesting when I came
here because you could see.
From the data that in 2019 when I
was looking at to try to understand
the violent crime in 2019,
there was this immediate
spike in violent crime.
And I was what's this spate of violence?
And it was very interesting. And it.
It went on for a while and then the
violent crime it decreased and then
right around the time of the protest
starting the violent crime soared back up.
And so it took me a while to figure out that.
That the time it spiked was one there'd
been all this discussion around.
Traffic stops.
What I will say to you is as
a law enforcement agency,
you have to do traffic enforcement.
Anybody that has driven in this city can see
that we need to do more traffic enforcement.
The speeds on the Interstate,
the running of the red lights,
the traffic fatalities,
it's it's.
It's far greater than it should be.
And this is one of the key reasons I
want to get our staffing up because
I just I think that that's something
that impacts the the community as a
whole and it's very concerning when
people just think that 100 miles
an hour Interstate is just normal.
That being said, where this agency,
like many others, got itself in trouble,
was clearly there was some
targeted enforcement.
The data.
The data shows that all day long and so.
If you are profiling and making traffic
stops based on an individual's race,
the neighborhood they're in,
or you're even profiling the car.
That's that's unlawful.
So the key is from where I'm sitting is.
It's getting as much information
as we can out of each traffic stop.
That the officers conducted on
the officers stop so that we can
identify if there's behaviors by
the officer that are discriminatory.
Give you example if you have an
officer and they do 20 stops
and 18 of them or 15 of them.
Are females between the ages of 20 and 25.
There's there's something going on here.
It's called a clue,
and so it's incumbent upon us as
supervisors to to immediately address
that and to start looking at the body.
More camera footage and
understanding what's going on here.
And
so is that something that you are now doing.
We're yes, we're we're. That is
one of the many things that
we're pushing forward on.
So First off is.
The collection of traffic stop data.
Is not where it needs to be,
but we have to coordinate to be
allowed to do it with the state.
So I have to get permission from the
state to modify the actual system
because we share a reporting platform.
And then the second thing is we're
working to hire civilians who can
audit the body more cameras so we
can get more information real time.
So the capacity to do it.
Is right there on the horizon
and it's really important to do.
It's really important to do so I think.
I think when you say do traffic yes,
but you have to do it right
and you have to do it lawful.
And I think the Hilliard Hines
report pointed out that that
was not the case at all.
And so I understand why it was suspended.
But I also it's not coincidental
that violent crimes soared when
officers stopped doing any traffic.