The Greensboro City Council plans to pass a resolution supporting “8 Can’t Wait” at the special Tuesday, July 2 City Council meeting.

Before the meeting, the City Council will hold a work session to discuss whether passing a resolution in support is enough.

At the City Council work session on Tuesday, June 23, City Councilmember Justin Outling said that simply passing a resolution didn’t do anything other than express their aspirations.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “We do want it to have teeth.”

Outling responded, “A resolution by its very nature doesn’t have any teeth.”

Outling noted that resolutions don’t do anything. But in the case of 8 Can’t Wait, whether or not the City Council passes support in the form of a resolution or as council policy won’t make much difference because according to Police Chief Brian James the Greensboro Police Department has already incorporated almost all of the demands of “8 Can’t Wait” into official police policy.

James made some of those changes shortly after taking office on Feb. 1, and on Monday, June 8, he announced further police policy changes that also fell in line with the 8 Can’t Wait initiative.

Campaign Zero, a product of the police protests in Ferguson, Missouri, came up with the eight procedural rules for police that Campaign Zero says will decrease police violence by 72 percent.

The eight rules are: Ban chokeholds and strangleholds; require de-escalation; require warning before shooting; exhaust all other means before shooting; duty to intervene; ban shooting at moving vehicles; require use of force continuum; and require comprehensive reporting.

James said that he did have an issue with the wording of one of the eight that he would like to discuss before the resolution was written. He said that the way he had seen it worded could cause confusion, but he didn’t say which of the eight it was.

Vaughan said that the Greensboro resolution would be based on the Memphis resolution and added, “I would like to get it posted so people can see what we are doing.”

City Manager David Parrish said, “We will share something as soon as we possibly can.”