HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-25-20 Public Comment - P. Coppolillo - Inclusive City Comment for 25 Aug City Commission meetingFrom:Pete Coppolillo
To:Agenda
Subject:Comment for 25 Aug City Commission meeting
Date:Tuesday, August 25, 2020 11:20:26 AM
I am in writing in regard to two recent reports from the City, the first titled, “Special
Presentation on City of Bozeman’s policies, training and frameworks on the topics of
diversity, anti-discrimination, hiring practices, use of force within the Bozeman Police
Department, and the citizen appeal process for the Bozeman Police Department.” and the
second, “Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests 2018 and 2019.”
First, thank you to the following individuals who compiled the reports at the City
Commission’s requests:
Jeff Mihelich, City Manager
Anna Rosenberry, Assistant City Manager, Chuck Winn, Assistant City Manager, Steve
Crawford, Police Chief, Kristin Donald, Finance and Interim HR Director and Greg Sullivan,
City Attorney.
I appreciate the openness and sharing of information and data, especially with respect to
the second report which included data from 2019 as well as 2018. I will address the reports
in reverse order for relevance.
With respect to a marijuana arrests, the report agrees with the ACLU data. In 2018, the city
accounted for nine of the 11 arrests reported by the ACLU and the county accounted for the
other two.
The data for 2019 are also concordant: with arrest rates of Black people at about 15 to 16
times that of whites.
Therefore, the ACLU conclusion, that Black people were arrested at much higher rates than
whites (18x higher in 2018 and approximately 15x in 2019) is something we all agree on.
Unfortunately, the marijuana report seems to dismiss the assertion that there is some
inequity, even ending with the assertion that no racial profiling is happening.
Whether we have an explicit and named policy of racial profiling or not is immaterial. If we
are arresting Black people at nearly 20 times the rate of white people, we have a problem.
That problem may be implicit bias on the part of the police, it may be on the part of citizens
who call the police more quickly when Black people are involved, or countless other factors.
In reality, it is most likely some combination of all of the above.
These data make it clear that once police interact with a Black person in our community, it
is more likely to end in an arrest. At this point, it is necessary to address the City’s other
report, which focuses on the initiation and content of police-citizen interactions. The city
evaluated our policies with respect to the “eight can’t wait” initiative. By my, or any other
objective reading, we fulfill at best three of the eight necessary policies. To be direct: We
are failing to avoid police violence.
I’d also like to acknowledge that some people have dismissed the eight can’t wait call
because it’s founders have now distanced themselves from it. It’s important to recognize
that the reason for the rejection has been that it was too weak. Therefore we’re fulfilling
about 35% of a policy that’s been dismissed as too week. We can and must do much
better.
I am requesting that the city commission and the staff who have already done an exemplary
job surfacing these data, continue our collective process of understanding, and carry the
momentum beyond just understanding but to remedying this situation. I will defer to the
Commission for identifying the City’s capacity to analyze the drivers of the problem and
craft appropriate interventions, but hiring a third party to conduct an independent review
certainly seems warranted in this case.
Thank you,
Pete Coppolillo
319 S 3rd Av
Bozeman
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Pete Coppolillo | +1 406 451 4267 | Pete.Coppolillo@GMail.com