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. (ST)1
2. City Council will bar any Chief of Police from even suggestively
promoting his/her/their own successor. (ST)
3. City Council will work through the courts, the General Assembly and
the Congress to end Qualified Immunity in police-involved shootings
and killings of our unarmed neighbors. (ST)
• City Council will publicly acknowledge that Qualified Immunity
creates an oppressive environment enabling police to violate,
with impunity, the rights of people.2
• City Council and the Manager will publicly establish the aim of
abridging Qualified Immunity as official policy for CMPD.
• City Council will publicly acknowledge the patent inequity of the
“Clearly established law” test.3
4. City Council will outlaw and CMPD will immediately cease any military-
based training of administrative or junior officers by foreign powers.
(ST)
5. CMPD will outlaw the practice of restraining arrested persons with
hands behind the back and face-down in police vehicles.4 (ST)
6. CMPD will immediately end “Kettling” as a tactic against peaceful

1
ST (“Short-Term” objectives); MT (Medium-Term objectives). There are no Long-Term objectives in this document.
The times are sufficiently urgent, that Council and the CMPD must move with all deliberate speed to begin
restoring public confidence in ethical policing in Charlotte. We are convinced that rescinding the contract, which in
our view, was arcanely offered to Deputy Chief Johnny Jennings, would engender trust in the community that the
disadvantageous tenure of Chief Putney will be replaced with structural and meaningful change.
2
An article by Melissa Quinn (June 5, 2020) discusses the new possibility that Q.I. may be taken up by the Supreme
Court in October of this year (2020). City Council would do well to file friend-of-the-court briefs wherever possible
and advocate publicly that the time is now opportune for the SCOTUS to take up the measure which may now have
an increased chance of success, with unlikely allies such as Justices Thomas and Sotomayor in agreement (although
for differing reasons) that the Court should re-examine the propriety of Q.I.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-qualified-immunity-police-announcement-could-come-soon/
(Accessed June 17, 2020).
3
This test establishes a mostly impossible standard that in order for an individual, in this case, a police officer, to
lose Q.I., the behavior in question must violate a written law AND there must exist a “clear” precedent in
established case law which identifies this exact behavior as unlawful.
4
CMPD’s Directive on “Positional Asphyxia”. November 24, 1992,
http://www.aele.org/law/2008ALL12/charlotte.pdf (Accessed June 5, 2020). Also see CMPD “Interactive Directives
Guide”, effective date February 7, 2020; Section 500-008, p. 4 of 8. All specific references to “Positional Asphyxia”
have been removed. https://charlottenc.gov/CMPD/Documents/Resources/CMPDDirectives.pdf (Accessed June 5,
2020).
 crowds. (ST) (Court-Ordered)
7. City Council will de-fund and abolish the use of teargas, pepperballs,
pepper spray and all other chemical agents by CMPD.5 (ST) (Court
Ordered)
8. City Council and Manager will re-direct all money withdrawn from
CMPD which comes from use and maintenance of military weapons, as
well as use and maintenance of chemical agents6 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 including: (MT)
• Independent Psychological professionals (added to CMPD FTE)
and approved by the Safe Community Committee of City Council
to ride-along on all domestic and mental health calls.7
• “Broken Windows Policing” calls would not allow marked units to
respond at all to Domestic and Mental Health calls. Cahoots
Program8 staff would respond to all such calls.
• Mandatory, more intensive, and intentional Mental Health
support for line officers
9. City Council and CMPD will end participation in the 1033 Program9 or
5
Chemical Weapons have been outlawed for use in warfare against a standing army or other military force. The
Geneva Protocol of 1925 crafted following the atrocities of WW1, was ratified in 1928 and re-ratified in 1993 as the
Chemical Weapons Convention. This begs the question, “If these weapons are outlawed in the barbarous arena of
war, why is it humane, ethical or not a violation of human and Civil Rights to use these weapons on civilians who
are putatively “Served and Protected” by police?”
6
We advocate an immediate City Budget Revision in Police Expenditures. We do not at present advocate for the
complete dismantling of CMPD. We do note, however, that 39.2% (Last year was over 40%) of the City of
Charlotte’s 2020 General Fund Expenditures is allocated to policing: more than any other General Fund
commitment. In spite of this outsized expenditure (Proposed $285,066,260; a 4% increase over last year), violence,
crime, growing resident dissatisfaction and mistrust are the outcome. At the very least, this expenditure is
ineffective, if not unresponsive to the real needs of residents. Much more good can be done by re-directing
spending to other areas of our civic life more directly aligned with equity and the quality of life of those suffering
from the inequities of our city.
https://charlottenc.gov/budget/FY2020%20Documents/FY_2020_Final_Proposed_5_8_19.pdf , Page 50 of 464,
(Accessed June 5, 2020).
7
An independent, Forensic Audit would determine both the funding and organizational imperatives for this policy.
The City Manager should be required to discover funding for such an Audit.
8
C.A.H.O.O.T.S. is an organization of Community-Based Emergency First Responders, designed to de-escalate and
stabilize mental health and family disturbance situations. Each C.A.H.O.O.T.S. Team consists of a medic, (nurse of
EMT) and a crisis worker trained in mental health. https://whitebirdclinic.org/services/cahoots/ (Accessed July 13,
2020).
9
The 1033 Program was created in 1990 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. It authorizes the
Defense Department to provide military weapons to local police departments. The program was initially initiated
for use in the so-called “War on drugs” and to assist localities in responding to terrorist cells and terrorist attacks in
the wake of the attacks of 9/11. The initial provision was that in order to retain the weapons, localities had to
 any program which transfers military-grade equipment to the CMPD.
(MT)
• End immediately acquisitions, transfers, purchases or donations
to CMPD of military equipment from any source.
• 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. (ST)
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 (MT) Immediate suspension,
without pay, of officers who kill an unarmed neighbor (MT)
• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who fail to keep
body cameras on during any engagement with a resident10 (ST)
• Immediate suspension, without pay, of officers who tamper with
or otherwise disable soon-to-be installed holster triggers for body
camera activation11 (ST)
12. CMPD will suspend, without pay, and refuse to retain officers who fail
to comply with CMPD’s “Duty to Report” policy.12 (MT)
13. Council and CMPD will make select meetings of the Civil Service Board
public in cases of the killing of our unarmed neighbors (MT)
14. Council and CMPD will publicly advocate and vigorously in good faith,
prevail upon the police union, that the Citizens’ Review Board be given
subpoena power. Council will use its influence in Raleigh to grant this
power.13

actually use the equipment within one year of receiving it. In light of the chronic and obvious problem of “over-
policing,” and excessive uses of force, these weapons must be dismantled and never used against the residents of
Charlotte again.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/2/21277981/senators-police-military-equipment-weapons
(Accessed June 17, 2020).
10
CMPD Policy Directives Manual, Section 400-005, pp. 1-11, (Accessed June 5, 2020).
11
Ibid, pp. 1-11, (Accessed June 5, 2020).
12
CMPD R.O.C. p. 10 S 36, SS G. The standard should be absolute and rescind any qualifications, such as the Duty
only applying to acts which rise to the level of behavior which “…shocks the conscience.” The term is a vague
loophole creating the probability that unless an incident has achieved public notice or wide notoriety, the Duty to
Report may not apply. https://charlottenc.gov/CMPD/Documents/Resources/RulesofConduct.pdf, (Accessed July
13, 2020).
13
Many members of the Interfaith Clergy will use their influence in partnership with Council and will volunteer to
lobby the G.A. in support of subpoena power for the C.R.B. In this current environment, this power is even more
 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 an outside, independent arbiter (ex. FBI).
City Council, with counsel from the Safe Communities Committee, will
identify the investigative Agency. (ST)
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.
(ST)

long overdue.