Vancouver city council unanimously votes to end police street checks
Vancouver city council has unanimously voted to ban street checks.
The decision came during Wednesday evening’s council meeting. The motion received ten votes of support and Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung did not take part in the vote.
The motion, which was put forward in late June by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, stated that people and organizations in Vancouver are ” calling for reforms to how police services are delivered, including ending street checks — the practice of stopping a person outside of an investigation, and often obtaining and recording their personal information.”
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Stewart to Twitter after the decision to thank council for supporting the motion. He also thanked “Black, Indigenous [and] people of colour who are disproportionately impacted” by the practice.
But remember: Council doesn’t have the authority to abolish street checks, the @VanPoliceBoard does.
Next: the Police Board will consider its own motion to review street checks and make a final decision on a ban.
I’ll keep pushing this forward, stay tuned.#vanpoli
— Kennedy Stewart (@kennedystewart) July 23, 2020
Stewart says the Police Board will now consider a motion on street checks and “and make a final decision on a ban.”
Because Stewart also chair of the police board, he won’t have the ability to vote or move motions related to the board, which is why the decision went through council first.
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