At last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting, City Manager Peggy Merriss detailed action items that are part of a response to the Decatur Community Coalition’s stated concerns of racial profiling in Decatur.  Former Decatur Board of Education member Don Denard started the conversation with the City Commission back in January after providing a detailed account of being stopped by a Decatur Police officer.

Among the items listed by the City Manager last night —

• Sponsoring a community conversation on diversity and “how it’s a community goal”.  Ms. Merriss stated that the city had met with a local facilitator who will come with a formal proposal to the September 2nd commission meeting.  Christian Perry – the GSU grad student who recently presented trending of the city’s demographics a few weeks ago has been asked to continue working with the city on this project.
• Deputy Chief Keith Lee and the City Manager will speak with the Anti-Defamation League this week about coming to do training with Decatur Police once Beacon Hill is complete and DPD “has a training room again”
• At the end of July, Decatur Police started tracking demographic data of people detained by the police department — Decaturish notes that this was one of the Decatur Community Coalition’s specific requests.

The City has set aside $25,000 in its budget for the City Commission to address these issues.

Decaturish has a detailed report from last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting.  Here are the first few sentences…

Don Denard says police racially profiled him and his experience isn’t unique.

The former Decatur Board of Education member brought a group of his supporters to the City Commission’s Feb. 18 meeting. Denard read a letter in response to a Decatur Police investigation that cleared officers of racially profiling him.

“Simply put, the finding by (Police Chief Mike Booker) that the officers did nothing wrong is totally unsatisfactory and unacceptable to me and is inconsistent with the pertinent facts of the case,” Denard said.

Mr. Denard said he would return to the Commission with a formal request as how the Commission should respond to the allegations.  The City Commission told Denard that they take his concerns seriously.

Decaturish followed up with former Decatur School Board member and 30+ year resident, Don Denard, who said he’s “considering his options” after the release of this week’s Decatur Police Department investigation findings in response to his accusations of racial profiling back in December.

Mr. Denard tells Decaturish that he will publicly respond to the investigation finding’s at next Tuesday’s Decatur City Commission meeting.  Both District 2 City Commisioners declined to comment on the DPD report prior to the meeting.

More HERE.