Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police Condemning Racial and Ethnic

Adopted by the Union City Police Department

WHEREAS, according to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, the majority of traffic crashes are caused by moving traffic violations and kill more than 40,000 people a year, injure another 3 million persons, and cause a societal loss of more than $150 billion dollars a year; and

WHEREAS, intensive traffic enforcement efforts have been proven to reduce traffic crashes and increase the apprehension of criminal offenders; and

WHEREAS, law enforcement agencies have seized more illegal drugs resulting from traffic enforcement than they have from undercover enforcement strategies; and

WHEREAS, traffic stops utilizing plain view and consent searches annually lead to the interdiction of millions of dollars in illegal substances and stolen property; and

WHEREAS, careful analysis of the actions and behaviors of criminal offenders who use motor vehicles in the commission of crimes reveals commonalties which, after the traffic stop, can be used to develop probable cause; and

WHEREAS, such strategies, when based upon articulable suspicion that an infraction of the law has been committed, have been upheld as constitutionally appropriate by the U.S. Supreme Court; and

WHEREAS, traffic stops should not be made on the basis of the motorist's race, ethnicity, or economic status, but rather on articulable suspicion or actual violation of a law-, and

WHEREAS, the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, and professional law enforcement organizations' training courses teach that biased or unprofessional enforcement practices are prohibited and will not be condoned; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, all law enforcement agencies are urged to examine their interdiction strategies and their mission and value statements, training programs, field supervision, evaluation of citizen complaints, traffic stop data and other efforts to ensure that racial or ethnic-based traffic stops are not being employed within their agencies and that all citizens are treated with the utmost courtesy and respect when they encounter our officers; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the United States Department of Justice are urged to form a close partnership for the purpose of providing financial support to all law enforcement agencies for training programs or in-car audio and video systems, and to assist in the voluntary collection of appropriate data relative to this resolution.