Support grows for police and criminal justice reforms
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| A scene from a viral video shows motorist Derrick Thompson being forcibly removed from his vehicle by a Virginia state trooper. The incident highlights the need for police reform. |
A group of progressive commonwealth’s attorneys from across Virginia are throwing their support behind an effort by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus to enact broad police and criminal justice reforms.
Those groups have a long list of proposals aimed at preventing racial profiling, promoting de-escalation, ensuring equity in policing and sentencing, and other issues that they plan to bring up at a special session of the General Assembly Aug. 18. Gov. Ralph Northam called for the special session to adopt a budget and consider criminal justice legislation.
According to the Senate Democratic Caucus: “The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor have awoken Americans and Virginians to longstanding problems in policing in America. After people are arrested, additional damage is done by a criminal justice system that has been streamlined to produce convictions and punishment instead of rehabilitation and justice.”
“Virginia is not immune to the abuse power or the excessive use of force against African Americans,” said Sen. Mamie Locke (2nd District-Hampton) during a videoconference with lawmakers and commonwealth’s attorneys. “Now is the time to be active, not reactive.”
“We need to correct decades of bad policy,” said Sen. Scott Surovell (36th District-Mount Vernon). “Focusing limited resources on crimes that cause the most harm will result in less recidivism.”
One key agenda item would require warrants to be served during the daytime and would ban “no-knock warrants.” That proposal would eliminate the type of situation that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in her bed by Louisville, Ky., police officers in the middle of the night.
Loudoun County’s commonwealth’s attorney Buta Biberaj called for an end to mandatory minimum penalties. Suspending someone’s driver’s license for six months for a violation not related to driving while impaired, she said, prevents people from getting to their jobs or taking their kids to school.
Each case needs to be considered individually, said Amy Ashworth, commonwealth’s attorney for Prince William County. “Judges and prosecutors need that discretion to impose a sentence that is fair and just.”
“Not every social ill should be a crime,” said Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, commonwealth’s attorney for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church. People with a mental disability and young people making a mistake should have a chance for rehabilitation.
Another big issue for the group is the need to stop automatically charging people with felonies for assaulting an officer. Surovell notes 11,000 Virginia were charged with this in the past five years, and about 70 percent of these charges don’t involve any harm to the officer.
He cites one example where a woman was having a mental breakdown in a Northern Virginia Dunkin’ Donuts, threw an onion ring at an officer, and was charged with assault.
This is the only offense on the books where the police officer is the victim and the witness and makes the charge, Surovell said. “It’s impossible to hold the officer accountable.”
The City of Alexandria’s commonwealth’s attorney, Brian Porter, spoke about the need to have people’s criminal records expunged. In Virginia, there is no way to have a crime committed a lifetime ago removed from the record, even if the case was dismissed, he said.
Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney for Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax, called for prosecutors to have more discretion. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen more judges look for loopholes and thwart the prosecutors,” he said, for example by imposing overly harsh penalties for marijuana.
“As prosecutors, our responsibility is to keep our communities safe – safe from being over policed,” said Shannon Taylor, commonwealth’s attorney for Henrico County. She called for more funding for mental health programs and recreational programs with an emphasis on conflict resolution, adding, “we need to root out racism and white supremacy.”
Here are some of the other items on the agenda for the special session:
- Prohibit the hiring of officers who have been fired or who resigned during use of force investigations.
- Create a decertification procedure for law enforcement officers.
- Ban chokeholds and strangleholds.
- Require warnings before shots are fired.
- Prohibit shooting at moving vehicles.
- Prohibit searches of individuals or vehicles based on an odor of marijuana without probable cause for other offenses.
- Prohibit stops for equipment violations not covered by a state vehicle inspection.
- Allow earned sentence credit for good behavior in prison.
- Provide compassionate release for terminally ill or permanently disabled prisoners.
Many of these issues were considered during the last General Assembly session, but “a lot of criminal justice advocates were disappointed with the lack of action,” Surovell said. The viral video of a Virginia state trooper assaulting an African American motorist in Fairfax County after a traffic stop for an expired inspection sticker has provided momentum to the move for police reform, he said.
“We are seeking transformative change,” said Stephanie Morales, commonwealth’s attorney for the City of Portsmouth. These issues are “a matter of life and death for people that look like me and my family.”
“We’re tired of incremental changes that have failed us and failed our communities for so long,” Morales said. “We’re trying to undo as many harms as possible.”
What a BS
Police and Policemen need our support –
We can start by being better citizens,
consider breaking the law less,
consider not stealing,
working hard
we need to reward good vs. encourage the evil in every freaking chance we get.
It’s about time Virginia caught up to the year 2000 now we only have 20 years left to get to 2020 and by then it will be 2040, glad the old stock in VA is going away , it’s time for a new VA and finally a better VA for the new generation our future is with the future ��
This is not "support growing". These liberal prosecutors have always believed in cutting back the police, incarcerations and redefining what actually are prosecutable crimes. They were specifically recruited to run even against old liberal prosecutors (such as in Arlington) who weren't far left enough for the PACs. Everyone wants the police response to be reasonable and bad cops to be eliminated, but most of us don't want the police's hands tied so they cannot respond at all as we are seeing in large cities across America.
The fact that progressive prosecutors keep getting elected shows that your entire point about support not growing and "most of us don't want. . ." is incorrect. You are incorrect and hold a minority opinion. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I was pulled over in Fairfax County for driving a car with expired out-of-state plates. The car was a rental and I'm a white female. I was treated fairly well but, especially given what's reported in this post, I doubt I would've been if I were a person of color.
This idiot was driving on a suspended license with an expired inspection sticker and not compliant with the officers. I am not sure of the need to make criminals hero's.
I do not think being forceably removed from his own vehicle with inherent bodily harm is appropriate for paperwork issues. If you do not see that as an issue, that is precisely why this is problematic.
Lol I know right, don’t drive with expired paperwork and maybe you won’t have a bunch of cops kick the ever loving shit out of you. It’s so simple! /s