Martin Luther King Junior Way & Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
USA
On Monday the 12th, the Peace & Justice Commission will create specific proposals for the Berkeley City Council to review at its upcoming meetings. The draft attached above is a starting point. It needs your input and participation in Monday’s discussion to shape it into a truly transformational platform. We look forward to hearing your ideas about changes to Berkeley’s policies on policing and accountability, along with an investigation of police practices.
There will be time for extensive public comment on specific proposals for changes in city policy and practice. Please prepare by reviewing the attached draft document before the meeting (see below). We have arranged for a larger room, so please feel free to spread the word!
In 2014 the community made our anger felt about the uncounted police killings of African American and Latino youth, and we declared the apparently radical notion that Black lives matter.
Now it’s 2015, and time to make real change in Berkeley.
This month the city government will be discussing how to rein in the outrageous police attacks on non-violent demonstrations. We must be allowed to demonstrate safely against the killings of people of color by state authorities.
See Councilmember Jesse Arreguin’s three specific proposals, including wording changes to several BPD General Orders, in items 27, 28, and 29 in the upcoming January 20 Council agenda at:
But this is not enough. Let us remember what brought us out in the streets in December. Black lives are devalued here in Berkeley as across the country. Kayla Moore is dead because our society favors “command and control” over compassionate mental health care.
We must keep the focus where it belongs. We can end racial profiling and impunity for those who kill under color of authority. We can turn around the militarization of local police, the collaboration with national security intelligence sharing, and begin to overturn the racial disparities that ravage communities of color in Berkeley.
Transforming policing and racial justice in Berkeley