Politics

NAACP seeks reform in police use-of-force

Members of NAACP Chapter 5477 walk on Main Street to deliver a letter demanding reforms in law officers’ use of force.

By Bill Moss, Published: December 12, 2014

Members of the Hendersonville chapter of the NAACP delivered a letter to City Hall and to the Historic Courthouse last week demanding reforms to prevent excessive force by law officers.

Nine members handed the petition to City Manager John Connet at City Hall and to budget analyst Megan Piner Powell at the Historic Courthouse on Friday, Dec. 5. Powell said she would put a copy of the letter in commissioners' mailboxes.
The letter mentions the nationally known cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and also Jonathan Ferrell, a former Florida A&M football player shot to death by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police while seeking help after a car crash, and Jesus Huerta, who police say shot himself while handcuffed in the backseat of a squad car in Durham.
"There are fundamental flaws in the unbridled authorization of police officers to use force against individuals who are not involved in the commission of a violent felony and are not posing an immediate physical threat to the officers or a third party," the letter said.
The letter demanded independent special prosecutors to investigate police shootings, mandatory training on racial bias, use of body-worn cameras, dash cameras on cruisers, community education and a commission to review police tactics.
"We do most of what they describe," said Hendersonville Police Capt. Bruce Simonds. "We have car cams, body cams, in-service training on sensitivity. They blanketed that demand across the state. We're pretty much ahead of the game" in practices the NAACP demanded.