1 councilman wants to defund CMPD chemical agent spending. Another praised its use
Charlotte City Council member Braxton Winston said Friday he wants to prevent the city from spending money in the next fiscal year to buy new or maintain existing stock of chemical agents used by police for crowd control and dispersal, one day after a fellow councilman praised its use.
Winston said Friday he will introduce an amendment to the city’s 2020-21 fiscal year budget. Council is expected to approve the budget Monday night. Winston’s motion would also create a city police oversight committee.
The use by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police of chemical agents like tear gas and pepper pellets on Charlotte crowds protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, have been criticized by demonstrators, activists and some city leaders. Police would not say exactly what was used.
The motion comes after a widely-condemned video was posted by alternative newspaper Queen City Nerve, showing police appearing to box in and deploy chemical irritants on demonstrators Tuesday night in uptown. It prompted Mayor Vi Lyles and CMPD Chief Kerr Putney to call for investigations.
“We have always had the political ability to take steps like this,” Winston, part of the board’s Democrat majority, said of his proposal. “I believe we are at a time, at a moment, where we might actually have the political will.”
But not all city council members have condemned CMPD’s actions. In fact, one thanked police for using the chemicals.
Council member Tariq Bokhari, a Republican, posted a screen shot of a lengthy letter on Twitter Thursday that he had sent to CMPD to support them. In it, he wrote, “Thanks for using chemical munitions once things turned unlawful withing the bounds the City Council has asked of you in our policy.”
Winston’s amendment would “direct the administration not to spend money to acquire new or maintain existing stocks of chemical agents used for crowd control and dispersal in Fiscal year 2021,” according to an outline of the proposal on Winston’s campaign website.
It would also direct the city manager to create a police oversight committee with the city council “to scrutinize police spending and policy implementation.”
‘A first step’
Tuesday night’s video sparked immediate outrage and reaction from city and statewide leaders, including Winston, who that night tweeted, “The deployment of chemical agents in Charlotte needs to end tonight.”
Putney has called the video “disturbing,” and the department is conducting an internal review of the incident, as is the State Bureau of Investigation.
Tuesday’s protests was one of a week of such events where police have arrested more than 100 people, including Winston, who was arrested Friday during the first night of demonstrations in Charlotte.
During at least several of these nights, police have deployed chemical agents for crowd dispersal.
CMPD, in a statement to the Observer, has declined to specify which chemical agents are used as part of what they call “Riot Control Agents” because that information is part of their strategic plan and “would put the community and officers at risk.”
Part of the challenge, Winston said, is untangling how much is spent on these agents, as budgetary requests from the department are often broadly described as for “equipment.”
Winston, speaking Friday from Historic Grace AME Zion Church on Fourth Street not far from where Tuesday’s incident occurred, said the amendment would not end CMPD’s use of chemical agents that already exist.
“Policing in America needs to be reformed. Policing in Charlotte needs to be reformed,” Winston said, calling the current policing system “carefully curated and intentionally imagined,” one that cannot be substantially modified with a single action.
“This is a first step,” he said.
This work was made possible in part by grant funding from Report for America/GroundTruth Project and the Foundation For The Carolinas.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 4:57 PM.
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