North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Thursday to create a task force to address racial equity and criminal justice reform in response to ongoing protests stemming from the police killing of George Floyd.
The group, which would be led by North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Anita Earls and Attorney General Josh Stein, will work to develop and implement strategies and policies to help eliminate systemic racism in the state’s criminal justice system.
“The task force is just the beginning, and I’m committed to making sure we see real progress,” Cooper said. “Taking on issues of race and discrimination is often difficult and uncomfortable truth can be hard.”
Cooper’s announcement came on the same day as Floyd’s funeral.
Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. His death, which was caught on video, has led to global demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustices.
Earls, a former civil rights attorney, said many polls show Americans strongly support more oversight and training for police officers. Still, she also can bring personal experience to the discussion.
“I bring an additional perspective as a black woman whose husband, who is also black, was once approached by police with their guns drawn as he was sitting in his car stopped by the side of the road and talking to me on his cell phone,” she said.
The group, called the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, also will include advocates, legislators, state and local law enforcement agencies, and people from affected communities.
In 2018, the incarceration rate among African American men was 5.8 times more than the rate among white men, and black women were imprisoned 1.8 times more than white women, according to numbers released in April by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Hispanics, who made up 16 percent of the U.S. adult population, accounted for 23 percent of the prison population. Black Americans accounted for 33 percent of the prison population and made up 12 percent of the U.S. adult population.
Senate Judiciary Committee co-chairmen Danny Britt, R-Robeson, and Warren Daniel, R-Burke, called the Cooper’s announcement “an exercise in political cowardice.”
“By contrast, the Republican-led Legislature has and will continue to take action on criminal justice reform,” their joint statement said. “We passed into law Raise the Age and are advancing the First Step Act and Second Chance Act.”
House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, announced last week the creation of a bipartisan task force to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system called the Task Force on Justice, Law Enforcement, and Community Relations.
Cooper, who was North Carolina’s attorney general for 16 years before becoming governor, said he also pushed for reforms while in the position.
The Center Square confirmed that during his tenure as attorney general, Cooper rallied for criminal defendants to get access to their full criminal files and promoted community policing and police accountability.
Cooper on Friday signed an executive order that created the Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental and Health Equity Task Force to focus on economic stability, health disparities and environmental justice.
