Durham police chief, mayor defend team making traffic stops in Black neighborhoods

Mayor Elaine O’Neal is backing the police chief in supporting a police squad some Durham City Council members have criticized for stopping mostly Black drivers for minor infractions.

The Durham Police Department’s Crime Area Target Team patrols areas where there has been a violent event like a shooting and retaliation is likely.

Much of the CAT team’s patrolling involves traffic stops, most often for equipment violations like a busted tail light or expired tag. The team made 1,963 traffic stops in 2022, according to quarterly reports.

“CAT teams have been around for a long time, some version thereof here in Durham,” said O’Neal. “It is necessary for officers to stop cars.”

But Council member Jillian Johnson said she remains concerned by the racial disparities of those being stopped.

“There’s been a broad direction in the Police Department of focusing on individuals responsible for violent crime and not on minor violations like tinting and expired plates and busted taillights and smoking weed,” Johnson said.

Police Chief Patrice Andrews said reducing traffic stops is not something written in department policy and that officers still obtain written consent for searches, a policy instituted in 2014.

“We have never tried to limit enforcement of any North Carolina general statute,” she said. “What we have said to our officers is: ‘You have discretion. If you can warn, we want you to warn. If you can cite, we want you to cite.’”

Racial disparities

More than 60% of the Durham Police Department’s traffic stops every year are of Black people, according to state data.

But on the CAT team, that percentage is closer to 81%, according to data from December.

Census estimates say Durham’s population is about 37% Black.

Andrews told The News & Observer after her presentation to the City Council on Thursday that it’s not a matter of profiling.

“The CAT team patrols in areas where there may be more African American community members than there are white community members,” she said. “It certainly does not equate to biased policing.”

The CAT team’s traffic stops account for about 29% of the Durham Police Department’s total traffic stops since it began operation.

The department has been stopping fewer people overall since the COVID-19 pandemic began, clocking 9,105 stops in 2022, a 39% decline from 2019, according to the State Bureau of Investigation. That’s due in part to staffing shortages, according to the chief.

Johnson said she takes issue with stopping for minor violations.

“It seem like the violations are a pretense to get to a stop and a search,” Johnson said. “Are you actually concerned about safety issues, or are you doing something else?”

Andrews said when it comes to stopping drivers for extremely dark window tinting or lapsed insurance, yes, those things can be dangerous.

“Those are safety concerns,” she said.

‘I still get nervous when I see the police lights’

O’Neal, a former chief district court judge, reminded the public of the “dualities” of danger tied to traffic stops.

“I still get nervous when I see the police lights go off behind or close by. I think we all probably have that,” she said. “And I’m sure there’s not a time when an officer makes a stop that it doesn’t cross their mind at some level whether this will be my last stop.”

Council member DeDreana Freeman said she agreed with Johnson’s sentiments, but noted the CAT Team seized 62 firearms last year, 11 of them stolen.

Crime went down in Durham last year, but gun violence remains a concern.

Council member Monique Holsey-Hyman said the CAT team was designed to address violent crime, not just stop people for the sake of making stops.

“I do feel that sometimes police get a bad rap,” said Holsey-Hyman. “I want us to start supporting them.”

Holsey-Hyman’s husband is a retired probation and parole officer.

“Every time he left, I always prayed for him,” she said. “I just get tired of the negative comments all the time. ... Would you put on a uniform and protect everybody in the city?”

Council member Javiera Caballero, however said she shared Johnson’s concerns.

“I also know that we have a lot of violent crime, in particular gunfire and gun violence, so that we’re in a very tough place,” Caballero said.

Durham’s HEAT 1 preceded the CAT team

The CAT team was started in the wake of a 2021 shooting in east Durham that left two teenagers dead and four others wounded.

“We felt like we needed to do more. We also had community members express that we needed to do more,” Andrews said.

Specialized policing units led by Durham’s former police chief C.J. Davis, whose tenure in Memphis has been rocked by the police killing of Tyre Nichols, attracted national scrutiny.

Members of the SCORPION unit, a since-disbanded Memphis police team targeting violent offenders in high-crime areas, were among those fired and charged with murder in Nichols’ death.

“If we are going to do this kind of policing,” Johnson asked, “ how do we make sure that we don’t create the same problems that other cities have had with these teams becoming just dangerous to residents?”

“I can’t definitively say there’s a zero percent chance that could ever happen here in Durham,” Andrews told the council. “I think when we’re talking about human beings and behavior, those things can happen and most likely will happen.”

Andrews, who worked for the Durham police before becoming chief, was one of the original sergeants to serve on HEAT 1, a previous iteration of CATT started in the mid-2000s. HEAT stands for High Enforcement Abatement Team, a unit that went after street-level crimes from drug sales to violent crime.

“Times have changed,” Andrews said. “It should change, the way we see and view how we serve our community.”

She went into further detail after the meeting.

“CAT has a different mission,” she told reporters. “We also want you to be able to look around you and really look at the quality of life issues that cause criminality. That wasn’t our direction back in the 2000s. Very different.”

An emphasis on accountability

Andrews told the City Council she sat the supervisors of all her specialized units down after the Memphis incident.

“Specifically asking them, do you check body-worn cameras? If so, how often? Do you check in on calls? Do you just let them go?” she said.

Andrews said the difference in Durham comes down to checks and balances built by competent leadership.

“C.J. Davis was very competent, in my opinion,” Johnson replied. “While leadership is part of the puzzle, I don’t think it’s the complete answer to figuring how to make sure the culture in these kinds of specialized units doesn’t go off the rails.”

Eight officers are on the CAT team and they patrol in marked cars. Supervisors review their behavior weekly, according to Andrews.

“That’s not just sitting down and having conversations. We actually look at their body-worn camera. There is an evaluation of how they interact and engage,” Andrews said.

Andrews said the team was hand-selected with care.

“We know officers that are good officers,” Andrews said. “Their enforcement, but also what are you doing in the community?”

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