Buffalo’s Black Mayor Targets Communities of Color to Raise Revenue

This article was originally published in Black Agenda Report. Read it here.

In a lawsuit against the City of Buffalo challenging unconstitutional and racially discriminatory traffic enforcement practices by the Buffalo Police Department (BPD), legal and civil rights groups filed a motion and brief for class certification. According to the case, these aggressive and punitive practices targeting Black and Latinx communities, which were designed to harvest revenue for the City budget, violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. We’re joined by Dorethea Franklin, a plaintiff in the case, who joins us from Buffalo, and Anjana Malhotra, a senior attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice , in New York.