Defunding the police is not about getting rid of police. It is about using the over-funded resources of metropolitan police forces to create new services and opportunities within communities. It is about reducing crime by taking proactive steps to create jobs and connections among people rather than just instilling the pervasive fear of merciless justice for any offense or suspicion.
Defunding the police is about making space for more conflict negotiators, healthcare workers, therapists...all things cops with little training are expected to do on a daily basis. It is about demilitarizing black and brown neighborhoods where checkpoints, random strip searches, stop n' frisk, profiling, 'broken window' policies, a racially discriminate policing/arresting/prosecution/imprisonment system have terrorized people for generations and created a school-to-prison pipeline, a street-to-prison pipeline, a vagrancy-to-prison pipeline, and various avenues for low level non-violent offenders to find themselves in the worst possible situation with the harshest punishment.
There are black men and women in prison for failing to show up to court, not having their dog registered, having a mental health crisis in public...and they are in prison for years. Willie Simmons is an army vet in an Alabama prison for life...for robbing someone of $9. In Connecticut there is a black man in prison for 250 years...for a non-violent robbery. He was arrested when he was a teenager and the rest of his life will be spent in prison.
Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed by a SWAT TEAM...and the cop didn't even have the right house or suspect. The suspect they were looking for was already in jail so it was a 100% mistake where SWAT invaded someone's house and killed them in their sleep. No one is arrested for literally killing an unarmed, innocent, sleeping black woman in her own bed. Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed in her house for leaving her own door open...by an amped up cop making a house call and shooting into a window. Two weeks ago, a black man in NJ was killed because his car broke down on the highway. A NJ state trooper put Maurice Gordon in the backseat of his cruiser while waiting for a tow truck, wouldn't let him out, detained him without reason, and then shot him. He is dead because his car broke down in a militarized nation that looks for reasons to detain, arrest, jail, shot blk ppl for having a bad day for any reasons and -often- no reason. You could be walking down the street, jogging, sleeping in your bed, walking through your house, dealing with car issues and be totally innocent unarmed and minding your business...and end up dead b/c we have created this false narrative of 'the streets are a battleground' and 'we are at war'...against blk bodies.
I heard a lot of confusing information about what 'defunding the police' means. I am learning more, going to meetings, seeing what can be done. Let me know if there are any other principles beliefs about 'defunding the police.' I know I didn't cover everything. But it's one way to start...
And then...bail reform, undoing mandatory sentence from all those awful crime bills, getting rid of military equipment for cops...and more. And more...
Defunding the police is about making space for more conflict negotiators, healthcare workers, therapists...all things cops with little training are expected to do on a daily basis. It is about demilitarizing black and brown neighborhoods where checkpoints, random strip searches, stop n' frisk, profiling, 'broken window' policies, a racially discriminate policing/arresting/prosecution/imprisonment system have terrorized people for generations and created a school-to-prison pipeline, a street-to-prison pipeline, a vagrancy-to-prison pipeline, and various avenues for low level non-violent offenders to find themselves in the worst possible situation with the harshest punishment.
There are black men and women in prison for failing to show up to court, not having their dog registered, having a mental health crisis in public...and they are in prison for years. Willie Simmons is an army vet in an Alabama prison for life...for robbing someone of $9. In Connecticut there is a black man in prison for 250 years...for a non-violent robbery. He was arrested when he was a teenager and the rest of his life will be spent in prison.
Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed by a SWAT TEAM...and the cop didn't even have the right house or suspect. The suspect they were looking for was already in jail so it was a 100% mistake where SWAT invaded someone's house and killed them in their sleep. No one is arrested for literally killing an unarmed, innocent, sleeping black woman in her own bed. Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed in her house for leaving her own door open...by an amped up cop making a house call and shooting into a window. Two weeks ago, a black man in NJ was killed because his car broke down on the highway. A NJ state trooper put Maurice Gordon in the backseat of his cruiser while waiting for a tow truck, wouldn't let him out, detained him without reason, and then shot him. He is dead because his car broke down in a militarized nation that looks for reasons to detain, arrest, jail, shot blk ppl for having a bad day for any reasons and -often- no reason. You could be walking down the street, jogging, sleeping in your bed, walking through your house, dealing with car issues and be totally innocent unarmed and minding your business...and end up dead b/c we have created this false narrative of 'the streets are a battleground' and 'we are at war'...against blk bodies.
I heard a lot of confusing information about what 'defunding the police' means. I am learning more, going to meetings, seeing what can be done. Let me know if there are any other principles beliefs about 'defunding the police.' I know I didn't cover everything. But it's one way to start...
And then...bail reform, undoing mandatory sentence from all those awful crime bills, getting rid of military equipment for cops...and more. And more...
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