Cities consider taking police out of traffic stops

Localities like Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Berkeley, California, are re-imagining traffic enforcement amid national calls for police reform.

Published June 3, 2021 smartcitiesdive.com

The city of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, last month became one of the latest localities to re-imagine the role of policing in traffic stops.

The city council passed a package of police reforms that calls for unarmed civilians — not police officers — to enforce certain traffic violations. The move follows an April incident in which a White former police officer shot and killed a 20-year-old Black man during a traffic stop.

Brooklyn Center isn’t alone in potentially overhauling its approach to policing and traffic enforcement. A recent Virginia bill limits the number of reasons police officers can pull over a driver, and the city of Berkeley, California, passed reforms in February that aim to limit police interactions at traffic stops.

These changes come roughly one year after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They provide a potential model for other cities looking to address calls for police reform by removing officers from certain roles, using other approaches to enforce street safety instead.

"One of the biggest key themes of what we've been talking about in this body of work is about identifying the intersections between transportation policy and policing," said Berkeley City Councilmember Rigel Robinson. "And recognizing that in so many ways, mobility justice is racial justice."

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