Dallas (WBAP/KLIF News) – The Dallas City Council has passed a measure that would cite people caught with less than four ounces of marijuana, but they would not be arrested. Supporters say “cite and release” would free jail space for more violent offenses.
Dallas police did not take an official position on the issue, but the Dallas Police Association had opposed the policy. Dallas Police Assistant Chief Gary Tittle spoke to the council before the vote Wednesday.
Tittle says an officer who finds marijuana would call a supervisor. The supervisor would then come to the scene with a scale to weigh the drugs and check identification to make sure the person lives in a part of the city within Dallas County.
Tittle says police would lose the ability to conduct a search as detailed as the search that would take place at a police station after an arrest.
“We would not have the ability to conduct a custodial search of the rest of their body,” he says. “We might find something else, whether it might be other types of drugs, other types of weapons.”
Tittle says 432 people were arrested with less than four ounces of marijuana last year.
Councilman Rickey Callahan says former Police Chief David Brown had said 80 percent of people who would be cited would wind up in jail.
“There’s still a clear legal pathway you have to go through, even though you’re cited and released,” he says.
After a vote failed that would have sent the issue back to the public safety committee for more input from police, Councilman Philip Kingston voiced his support, saying Dallas had delayed long enough.
“It’s been delayed for a year while, primarily, young, male African American and Latino kids sat in Lew Sterrett,” he says.
The measure passed 10-5, with Adam McGough, Jennifer Gates, Sandy Grayson and Callahan joining Mayor Mike Rawlings in voting against the plan.
After the vote, members of the group, Faith in Texas, cheered as they left City Hall, saying, “We won!”
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