Columbia’s NAACP chapter held its second community meeting Tuesday night to craft recommendations on different ways to improve the city as a whole.
The NAACP chapter is preparing a list of recommendations for the city and Columbia Police Department. More than 200 people attended the second meeting to discuss topics like police training, economic disparity and education.
The chapter’s president, Mary Ratliff, said racial profiling in the community must be addressed.
“We understand that the city probably needs more police officers, and that would need to be done through probably a tax increase,” Ratliff said. “However, we talked about the fact that prior to us advocating for a tax increase or police officers that we need to look at decline in the racial profiling report.”
Many of the recommendations focus on ways to improve community policing in Columbia, but they also cover issues like job opportunities for African Americans and improving schools.
“We’re talking about Columbia as a whole, and what we need to do to make Columbia better place to live,” Ratliff said.
The chapter plans to give five recommendations to the city soon, then solidify more recommendations at their third meeting next month.
