The Buffalo Police Department recently announced that it will eliminate its Traffic Unit effective January 2021. The Fair Fines and Fees Coalition wants residents in the city of Buffalo to know that This is Not Reform.
This action by the Buffalo Police Department does not remove the police from existing traffic enforcement practices. The traffic unit that will be eliminated merely handles traffic control for parades, festivals, and other special events. This means that disbanding the traffic unit will not stop excessive ticketing or biased traffic stops in Buffalo’s Black and Brown communities.
The Fair Fines and Fees Coalition also challenges the Buffalo Police Department’s claim that this action will save the city money. While Traffic Unit officers will be reassigned to other divisions, this does not mean they will be removed from the force. Regardless, outside organizations traditionally pay to secure traffic detail from the BPD for special events such as walks, runs, rides or parades. If organizations other than the BPD typically shoulder the cost of traffic control themselves, then where is the cost savings to the Department? Real cost savings and true reform would be realized by moving the officers of the traffic unit into vacant positions in other city departments, or through layoffs.
Under Mayor Brown, the Buffalo Police Department’s budget, which now stands at $143 million, has increased by 54%. The press statements made by the Buffalo Police Department about disbanding the traffic unit sound like reforms to decrease spending on police, but in fact they are not. The Fair Fines and Fees Coalition believes this unit is being disbanded because of a shortfall created by COVID-19, which has caused widespread cancellation of events throughout the year. Elimination of the BPD’s traffic unit is clearly not a step toward defunding the police, or any meaningful police reform in Buffalo.
The City of Buffalo must make real reforms by defunding the police, including by eliminating traffic enforcement from the duties of the patrol division of the Buffalo Police Department. This division excessively and disproportionately tickets, targets, stops, and brutalizes Black and Brown Buffalo residents. Our pandemic-stricken city is facing millions of dollars in projected budget cuts. If the city truly wants to save money and promote public safety, then the City of Buffalo must reduce the police budget and instead invest in the community.
What does this look like? It looks like disbanding other units within the Buffalo Police Department that have a history of disportionately stopping Black people, excessively
ticketing for minor traffic infractions, and brutalizing community members. It starts with eliminating traffic enforcement from the patrol division, taking the resulting cost savings, and reinvesting it into unarmed, non-police traffic safety jobs for Buffalo residents in underserved communities. It includes using the savings from disbanding other units in the BPD to redesign Buffalo streets into Just Streets. Just Streets, can also move the city of Buffalo away from traffic safety by surveillance, like the School Speed Zone Camera program. Just Streets: streets that are designed with race, culture, class, disability, and community safety in mind. Just Streets are those reclaimed by people of color and made safe and accessible for marginalized racial groups, without the police.
Please join the Fair Fines + Fees Coalition tomorrow for our virtual press conference via zoom at 10 am, as we discuss the disbanding of the traffic unit and how we can create Just Streets in Buffalo.
Topic: FFFC press conference
Time: Dec 17, 2020 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Meeting ID: 856 3046 4239
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