100 signatures reached
To: City of Milwaukee Common Council
SUPPORT A MORATORIUM ON TRAFFIC STOPS FOR REVENUE
Due to the negative interactions between Black citizens and the Milwaukee Police Department that often take place during traffic stops, I am requesting a moratorium on traffic stops for revenue. The Department of Justice has concluded in their reports regarding Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD that these stops impede the ability of poor people to pay which also has a negative impact on police relations with the community they are sworn to serve and protect.
Why is this important?
My name is Stephanie Findley and I am a longtime resident of Milwaukee. I just started a petition titled “ Support a Moratorium on Traffic Stops for Revenue”. As you probably know the Milwaukee police department stop black and hispanic drivers at a rate drastically higher than white drivers. When black people have interactions with the police violence can escalate quickly and as a Black woman the fear that I feel when a police car pulls up behind me is palpable. Black residents of Milwaukee should not have to live in fear of being unjustly targeted and pulled over by the police when driving.
A moratorium will help to decrease the number of interactions Black residents of Milwaukee have with the police. In Milwaukee Black drivers are seven times as likely to be stopped by the police when compared to a white driver. The annual number of traffic stops conducted by police in Milwaukee has nearly quadrupled in the past four years, resulting in almost 200,000 stops last year. Police in Milwaukee stop black and hispanic drivers five times as often as white drivers and they are also five times as likely to be searched when pulled over by the police for a traffic stop. Unsurprisingly, black and hispanic drivers are also arrested at twice the rate of white drivers when pulled over by the police.
These statistics further prove what Black Milwaukee residents already know to be true: that the police’s use of traffic stops has a huge racial gap, resulting in the over policing of black and hispanic communities.
Black people in Milwaukee live in fear of the police and doing something as simple as driving to work or taking your kids to school can result in a negative interaction with the police. We know all too well that when Black people are stopped by the police during traffic stops violence escalates quickly, sometimes resulting in death as seen with Sandra Bland and Philando Castille.
Please join me in demanding that Milwaukee city council introduce a moratorium on traffic stops for revenue.
How it will be delivered
The petition will be delivered to the City Clerk's office who will submit it to the members of the common council.