Today (Tuesday, July 14), Berkeley city leaders will consider a proposal that would remove traffic stops from the Police Department's jurisdiction, making it one of the first U.S. cities to do so (according to ABC7 News). The council members will hear the proposal during Tuesday evening's teleconference council meeting scheduled for 6pm.
If adopted, the proposal would direct the city to create a Department of Transportation to oversee traffic enforcement and transportation planning for the next fiscal year. Routine traffic stops would be carried out by unarmed civil servants within the new department instead of an armed police officer, but the details of how enforcement would work still need to be fixated.
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