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Council Member Cabán's concerns about enforcement impacts and racial disparities
1:01:35
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152 sec
Council Member Cabán expresses concerns about the enforcement of cyclist violations, emphasizing the disproportionate impacts on vulnerable communities and persistent racial disparities in policing.
- Cabán highlights the potential severe consequences of criminal summonses for low-wage workers and immigrants.
- She cites data showing a decrease in e-bike collisions and injuries, suggesting alternative approaches to improving safety.
- Cabán acknowledges the NYPD's recognition of racial disparities but argues that these disparities have not been substantially reduced or eliminated, particularly in post-stop interactions.
Tiffany Cabán
1:01:35
Thank you.
1:01:36
I I only have a couple of seconds left, I wanna finish asking questions, but I think it's important to note on the record for everybody here that there's no like, it is not It does not increase public trust in how this is being enforced if you cannot even articulate or name the things that officers are considering when using that discretion or not.
1:01:56
And if I could just have a couple extra seconds to wrap up my thoughts on these chairs.
1:02:04
I think that fundamentally, that's an enforcement problem that unacceptable.
1:02:08
I will say that the consequences of these stops versus I understand that there is a real challenge in creating safe habits.
1:02:17
But the enforcement mechanisms and their impacts are really, really disparate.
1:02:22
Where a person might get their license suspended, a person who is more likely to be a person of color who works a low wage job, who might be an immigrant, that gets a criminal summons, may end up in deportation proceedings, may have to go to criminal court for months, sometimes up to a year or more.
1:02:39
And so it's not just, it's not right, and it's actually quite dangerous.
1:02:45
And the data shows that e bike collisions and injuries through 04/30/2025 are down twenty six percent compared to the year before.
1:02:54
Rider injuries are down seventeen percent in that same period, and pedestrian injuries are down forty seven percent.
1:03:00
So I think that there are other ways to accomplish these goals that don't involve criminalization of already vulnerable communities and outsized criminalization at that.
1:03:08
And then I just wanna I will end with a comment.
1:03:11
It's not a question, but I I appreciated, commissioner, the the testimony around acknowledging the long standing racial disparities because they do exist, we can't deny them.
1:03:20
And, unfortunately, you had colleagues here at the last hearing who just denied them.
1:03:25
So I I'm glad that we can at least agree on those facts.
1:03:28
It doesn't do you guys any favors to deny that.
1:03:30
But I will say that I was surprised by it kind of being viewed a little bit under rose colored glasses here because they haven't been substantially reduced or eliminated.
1:03:40
I will say it's not just the stops where the racial disparities remain, but I laid out these numbers exactly in the last hearing, but it's after the stop, motor vehicle stops in particular, where we're seeing large racial disparities for searches after stops, for arrests after stops, and for use of force after stops with black and brown people versus white folks.
1:04:00
And so I just think that we can acknowledge them, but also we should acknowledge them to the scale that they exist so that we're actually doing something about it.
1:04:07
Thank you.