Urban Shield Protest Organizing.

September 4-8, 2014, in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies — will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. Take a stand against the militarization of our community.

Decrease violence in our communities by ending the militarization of the police.
From schools, the border, prisons, to the streets, our communities have become sites of repression and violence at the hands of law enforcement.  Ever increasing militarization of our communities has created a culture of surveillance and repression targeting poor communities of color.  Community-led solutions addressing poverty and the violence of policing are the best ways to ensure genuine safety, health, and wellbeing for people most vulnerable to state violence.

• We demand the City of Oakland defund all activities related to Urban Shield
• We demand that all city agencies withdraw their participation in Urban Shield.

Our communities refuse to be testing grounds for tactics of global repression.
Local police departments collaborate with federal agencies to share information and tactics through vehicles such as fusion centers to surveil and control targeted communities. These same agencies are also exchanging policing and repression tactics with international security officers including but not limited to the Apartheid State of Israel. The import and export of technology and tactics includes purchasing weapons, training local police forces, and sharing strategies through activities such as Urban Shield. Our neighborhoods have become laboratories in which to test international and domestic warfare.

• We demand an end to all City collaborations with the Apartheid State of Israel.
• We call on the City of Oakland to issue a report on all collaborations between the Oakland Police Department and international law enforcement agencies.
• We call on the City of Oakland to reject all US wars and occupations here or abroad.

Community Self-determination
Our communities know what is required to address the social, economic and political problems we face.  Bay Area residents should have decision-making power over how and where resources are allocated in order to build stronger and sustainable communities.

• We demand that Bay Area residents have decision-making power in the process to determine priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness.
• We demand that the City of Oakland invest in community-based programs proven to decrease violence and harm instead of in the increased militarization of its police force and emergency services.

We call on our communities to continue fighting back and resisting state violence and repression.
In the face of growing efforts to police our communities, we must forge alliances to challenge systems of repression and build power in our communities.  Understanding prisons, borders, surveillance and policing as tools of global repression is critical to building and maintaining powerful movements for liberation.  Gentrification in our streets is colonialism elsewhere. The War on Terror we are living through today is a new formulation of the War on Drugs, and the violence inflicted on our communities necessitates a unified stance against all forms of repression from the US to Brazil, to the Philippines and Palestine.

• We ask our allies and partners to adopt these principles and take a stand against the policing and repression of our communities.