Durham County
Durham fully adopts all ’8 Can’t Wait’ police reform policies
Protests erupted across North Carolina and the country last summer after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Now, seven months after a national campaign urged police departments to reform their use-of-force policies, the city of Durham says its department is in full compliance with all “8 Can’t Wait” policies.
The campaign, a project by Campaign Zero, pushed police to adopt eight restrictions on when and how officers could use force. It was born amid a backdrop of months-long protests, after Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest, as an officer knelt atop his neck and three others stood by.
In June, Durham Mayor Steve Schewel joined other mayors in a national pledge to reform use-of-force policies and combat systemic racism in law enforcement. The pledge was led by former President Barack Obama, and received the support of hundreds of mayors.
Schewel said Monday he was “glad to take up that challenge.”
“I’m very glad that the Durham Police Department is fully supportive of the ‘8 Can’t Wait’ protocols, which reflect the values of our community,” he added.
Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis, and the department’s deputy police chiefs, were not available for an interview, a department spokesperson told The News & Observer.
In the news release, Davis said the department’s policies were “aligned with 8 Can’t Wait” and “go beyond the 8 Can’t Wait principles.”
The N&O asked DPD for more information about the policies, but the department had not responded by the time of publication.
“During these very challenging times, as our community expects us to keep them safe, we will do our very best to foster trust and transparency as we serve the public,” Davis said.
The 8 Can’t Wait policies:
- Ban chokeholds and strangleholds
- Require officers attempt to de-escalate the situation before resorting to force
- Require officers to warn before shooting
- Require officers to exhaust all other options before shooting
- Require officers to intervene when another officer uses excessive force
- Prohibit officers from shooting at moving vehicles
- Require officers to respond with only the degree of force necessary
- Require comprehensive reporting when officers use or threaten force
In September, the 9th Street Journal reported that Durham officers were “encouraged” but not required to exhaust all other options before using deadly force, and that officers were only required to file a use-of-force report if an injury occurred. Both policies have since been changed.
According to the 8 Can’t Wait website, which tracks the implementation of its standards around the country, Durham adopted six of its eight recommended policies in the time since the campaign launched. With two already in place, it is now in official compliance with the campaign.
The campaign says 314 cities have adopted stricter use-of-force policies since it began in June.
From 2014-2019, the most recently available data on use-of-force in Durham, DPD reported 11 applications of deadly force.
A Washington Post database tracking deaths by officer involved shootings shows at least six people have been shot and killed by police in Durham since 2015. Between January 2013 and December 2019, Durham police killed seven people in total, according to the Mapping Police Violence project.
Across the state, 239 people were killed by police during the same period.
In September, Charlotte became one of only 10 cities at the time to fully comply with 8 Can’t Wait’s policies, The Charlotte Observer reported.
Raleigh Police banned the use of chokeholds in June, as the city said it would move to adopt all of the campaign’s policies. The department appears to have done so in the time since, but the 8 Can’t Wait campaign — which last updated its page on Raleigh in August — has not yet certified it is in full compliance.
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