BUFFALO, N.Y. — With Derek Chauvin's conviction, there is a renewed push to address police-community relations and make reforms nationally and here at home.
"We've done nothing to change the way policing works, we have not done anything to deter the way police operate," said De'Jon Hall, a community activist.
Even with Chauvin's conviction, he and many community leaders say both nationally and locally a lot more work needs to be done to address police-community relations.
"True justice, however, would be reforming and ultimately, completely redefining a system that for centuries has led to countless Black deaths," Hall said.
Following the death of George Floyd, the City of Buffalo enacted a series of police reforms.
One of the initiatives – so called 'stop receipts' people who are stopped by police are at the very least supposed to be given a receipt to know why they were stopped.
But data we've obtained late last year shows few stop receipts being written and the Buffalo Police Union President John Evans says stop receipts are a waste of time.
2 On Your Side's Jeff Preval asked Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, "Why aren't they doing it and if they're supposed to be, what do you do about that?"
"So, police are issuing stop receipts, we have the data in the Buffalo Police Department to show Buffalo Police officers are issuing stop receipts," Brown said. "The comments by a police union official that were tantamount to saying that stop receipts are a waste of time was a misguided comment, still a lack of understanding of the time that we're in."
On mental health situations, police have a device called BolaWrap, which ties up an individual from a distance using a cord. City lawmakers want to know how often the BolaWrap is used.
"Is that data that you have or is that data that is forthcoming?" Asked Buffalo Common Council member David Rivera during Wednesday's Buffalo Common Council Police Oversight Committee meeting.
Police say they've only used the BolaWrap in one incident, a couple months ago, and that it does have data on that specific incident, and that the department will continue to track the data. Police say the use of the device was successful.
Community activists want to see more oversight and more community policing, and for the nation to come together to really address how the police serve and protect.
"We have a lot of federal legislation that needs to be passed state-level in all 50 states that needs to be adopted in order for Black lives to truly matter," Hall said.
In a virtual meeting hosted by Buffalo State College on policing after the Chauvin trial, the chief diversity officer at Buffalo State, Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, says the residency of officers is critical to policing. And that officers living in the neighborhoods where they work can improve policing.
Police officials during Wednesday's police oversight committee meeting said they couldn't elaborate on any possible residency requirement because contract negotiations with the police union are ongoing.
During Buff State's meeting, James Sobol, chair and associate professor of Criminal Justice at Buff State said, "We likely need to have some external review boards we probably need to look at policing from the standpoint of having a different set of eyes looking at what’s happening because I think when police investigate themselves the community will question the legitimacy of police. And in the end if the community ends up questioning the legitimacy of the police you’re in a whole lot of trouble."