City councilors agreed on one thing Wednesday night: They all want to have a public discussion of the 2018 Equality Indicators report that found racial disparities in police practices.
What they could not agree on was under what format and structure those discussions should be held. So a vote on Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper’s proposal to hold public hearings on the issue was postponed until March 6.
In the meantime, councilors will figure out the details.
“I just want to say that I am not afraid of the work; I’m not,” said Councilor Crista Patrick. “But I can’t in good conscience think this is the way. I don’t have enough information at this particular time to do this.”
Hall-Harper, the council’s lone African-American, was one of more than 50 Tulsans who signed a letter from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund last year demanding that the city act immediately to address the racial disparities in police practices outlined in the report.
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The Equality Indicators report identifies 54 areas of inequality in the city. The city’s overall score was 38.93 out of 100. The city’s scores for the two areas it has the most control over, justice and public services, were also in the 30s.
The city’s score for Race and Officer Use of Force was 20 out of 100. The Equality Indicators report found that blacks are five times more likely than Hispanics to have force used on them by officers and that whites are half as likely to experience use of force by police than blacks.
For months, Hall-Harper has been advocating to invoke the council’s power in the city charter to hold public hearings to “investigate the conduct of the city government” and subpoena witnesses, if necessary.
It’s a process city officials say has never been used before, and it was what gave Patrick and other councilors pause Wednesday.
Council Chairman Phil Lakin advocated for the creation of a task force, saying councilors could always vote to invoke their subpoena power if necessary.
“That is not a power that has ever been instigated by a previous council” Lakin said. “I am not prepared to instigate that or approve, or initiate that at this time, given that we still have this task force opportunity before us.”
Hall-Harper said she is holding out the right to call for public hearings again should her fellow councilors choose to use the task force format instead.
“If we don’t get the response we want, then we can go back and initiate the public hearings article in the (city) charter that allows us to subpoena,” she said after the meeting.
In addition to examining police practices, councilors also want to explore the disparities in access to city services reported in the Equality Indicators reports. But it was policing practices that drew a large crowd Wednesday, including 10 speakers who implored councilors to move forward with the public hearings.
“I’m standing here today because everything in this report has affected my life … ,” said Deon Griggs, 21. “ I do believe that holding these hearings would be a step in the right direction, and leadership needs to see that these numbers aren’t some arbitrary figure ... this is our community.”
