Police Abolition

Power Over The Police

June 13, 2020 By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Dissent Magazine. Strategize! Demands, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The clashes between police and protesters in response to the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and others throughout the country expose the violence inherent to the U.S. system of policing. Social media has been inundated with hundreds of videos chronicling police aggression and brutality. Cities nationwide, particularly in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., have faced unprecedented militarization of their streets. Police have wielded weapons typically used only by special forces in overseas military campaigns, even going as far as to use a Lakota helicopter with Red Cross markings in a show of force against protesters (in violation of the Geneva Convention).

Minneapolis Organizers Are Building The Tools For Safety Without Police

June 13, 2020 Jae Hyun Shum, Truthout. Create! Minneapolis, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

In 2018, members of the Minnesota grassroots groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective dropped a banner at Minneapolis City Hall. On it were two lists: on the left, three budget items on the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) budget, totaling $9 million. The right side was significantly longer, listing programs and organizations where the city could invest those $9 million to promote community safety — like domestic violence programs, housing and harm reduction. We were calling on the city to move our community’s dollars out of the violent, untrustworthy MPD, and into programs that actually keep us safe. That year, the city council moved $1 million from MPD’s budget into violence prevention — a drop in the bucket of the MPD’s $180 million budget, but a significant investment for underfunded anti-violence work.

Cops Out Of Our Unions And Hospitals

June 13, 2020 Socialist Healthcare Workers, Left Voice. Resist! Healthcare workers, Police, Police Abolition, Rebellion2020

Over the last few weeks, thousands have spilled onto the streets, joining Black youth who rose up in response to the savage murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other Black people at the hands of police. Healthcare workers who are on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic are taking part, painting protests across the country with green and blue scrubs, white coats and surgical masks. This condemnation of the police and systemic racism has been expressed through the lens of health care with the words, “Police are a threat to public health.” Over 1,700 healthcare workers signed our statement condemning the racist murder of George Floyd. Actions have been organized in the name of “WhiteCoats4BlackLives” (WC4BL) and “Frontlines for Frontlines.”

Violence Towards Protesters Shows Why Many Want To Abolish Police

June 8, 2020 Kim Brown, The Real News. Educate! Minneapolis, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Welcome to the Real News. I’m Kim Brown. After several sustained days of protest in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd on May 25th, the epicenter of this latest uprising movement, Minneapolis, is experiencing an over militarized response with Minnesota National Guard troops joining alongside Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Police law enforcement agencies in attempting to quell the uprisings. But organizers on the ground there are using their ingenuity to coordinate mutual aid and redistribution efforts, plus providing a platform for the solution to the crisis of over-policing and brutality, get rid of the police altogether. Well, joining me to discuss this today is Tony Williams. Tony is an organizer and a police abolitionist in Minneapolis.

Ten Action Ideas For Building A Police-Free Future

June 7, 2020 MPD150. Create! Community organizing, health, Police, Police Abolition

What makes a community healthy and safe? This document doesn’t have all the answers, but it acknowledges that for many of us, police are not part of the solution. Patterns of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and bullying are too common. When someone is having a mental health crisis, or when neighbors are concerned about a fellow neighbor, or when we feel unsafe– are the police our only option? Of course, different communities have different needs. Vibrant, dynamic, and police-free communities aren’t going to be created by outside groups– they’re going to bloom from the soil that already exists in those spaces. What we can share here, though, is what that process has looked like elsewhere.

We Need The NYPD Out Of Vision Zero

June 5, 2020 Keegan Stephan, City Limits. Create! New York City (NYC), Police, Police Abolition, Traffic Violence

Earlier this month, a drunk driver plowed onto a Williamsburg sidewalk at 3 a.m., seriously injuring three people and killing one. The scene painted by witnesses was reminiscent of a bloody war movie—a severed leg, a body impaled on a fence, and people running in fear. While bystanders tried to aid the victims, ripping their shirts into tourniquets to stop the bleeding, the driver tried to flee. When he was stopped by still more heroic New Yorkers, he hopped in the passenger seat and acted clueless about what had happened. He was an NYPD officer scheduled to work in less than four hours. This episode is tragically emblematic of the NYPD’s relationship to NYC’s efforts to end traffic violence, a campaign known as Vision Zero. Both with their actions and inaction, the NYPD has driven the violence in our streets and acted clueless about what has caused the carnage.

Minneapolis City Council President Wants To ‘Dismantle’ The Police

June 5, 2020 Nick Visser, Huff Post. Create! Accountability, Minneapolis, Police, Police Abolition

Lawmakers in Minneapolis are planning to vote on the first slate of changes to police forces following the death of George Floyd, with some local leaders saying they want to “dismantle” the department amid nationwide protests calling for systemic change. The Minneapolis City Council will vote on a temporary restraining order Friday to institute immediate changes to the police department that may include increased accountability and shifts in use of force policies. But the body’s president, Lisa Bender, and councilmember Jeremiah Ellison wrote Thursday they hoped to ultimately replace law enforcement with a “transformative new model of public safety,” calling such changes long “past due.”

Republicans & Democrats Unite To Increase Police Power, People Call For Abolition

July 25, 2018 By Ricardo Levins Morales, Rlmartstudio.wordpress.com Create! Electoral Politics, Party Politics, Police, Police Abolition, Ruling Class

Virtually unnoticed in the cacophony of the Trumpian news cycle, a bill to place more power in the hands of police slithered through the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support – including from such progressive Democratic luminaries as Luis Gutierrez, Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison. The “Serve and Protect Act” (HR5698) comes packaged as a necessary measure to protect our brave officers “who put on the badge every day to keep us safe” from the dangers of an imaginary “War on Police.” Specifically, it would impose prison terms of up to 10 years for harming or attempting to harm officers of any local, state or federal agencies of what is euphemistically called “law enforcement.” If convicted of carrying out or attempting a kidnapping or killing of an officer, the accused could be imprisoned for life.

Call To Disband Baltimore Police Department In Wake Of Abuses

May 20, 2018 Lawrence Brown, Baltimore Beat. Create! Baltimore, Corruption, Police Abolition, Police abuse

After the DOJ report, the Baltimore Police Department did not fundamentally change. They continued to have a “War Room” and were found to have engaged in secret aerial surveillance, facial scanning, and using Geofeedia and Zerofox to track activists on social media. They have secretly deployed a device called Stingray to capture all cell phone signals in an area effectively criminalizing entire communities, especially disinvested, redlined Black neighborhoods. Hence, the Baltimore Police Department is fundamentally a white supremacist organization that hurts Black Lives.

Do We Need Police? That Question Is Not As Crazy As It Sounds

February 21, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Artkillingapathy.com Create! Police, Police Abolition

The first time someone offered up the suggestion to abolish police, I was shocked and confused. I’ve known for a long time that the prison industrial complex is poison, that predominantly black and brown communities are over-policed and underfunded, that for the most part cops are assholes — but even with all that, the idea of doing away with cops entirely seemed unacceptable to me. We need cops, I thought. But why? Why are cops necessary? Well, first off, let’s consider why they were ever necessary to begin with. Though a child of the British empire, American policing did not last long in its shadow. Today’s U.S. police forces are not descendants of what’s known as the Peel model; the citywide police force suggested by home secretary Robert Peel and accepted by Parliament in 1829.

Envisioning The US Without Police Violence & Control

October 29, 2017 Rashmee Kumar.theintercept.com Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Police Abolition, Police abuse, St. Louis

By Rashmee Kumar for the Intercept. Starting with the “original police force,” the London Metropolitan Police, Vitale provides a succinct historical framework to understand how police in the U.S. were created to control poor and nonwhite people and communities. The modern war on drugs can be traced back to “political opportunism and managing ‘suspect populations’” in the 20th century. The increasingly intensified policing of the U.S.-Mexico border today stems from nativist sentiment and economic exploitation of migrant workers starting in the 1800s. Surveillance and suppression of political movements takes root in imperialist Europe, when ruling powers used secret police to infiltrate and eliminate the opposition. “The End of Policing” maps how law enforcement has become an omnipresent specter in American society over the last four decades. Police are deployed to monitor and manage a sprawling range of issues: drugs, homelessness, mental health, immigration, school safety, sex work, youth violence, and political resistance. Across this spectrum, current liberal reforms are intertwined with upholding the legitimacy of police, courts, and incarceration as conduits to receive access to resources and care. Vitale’s approach goes beyond working within the carceral system to propose non-punitive alternatives that would eventually render policing obsolete.

Police Unions, Police Officers, And Police Abolition

September 23, 2017 Rosa Squillacote, www.portside.org Create! Police, Police Abolition, Unions

By Rosa Squillacote for Portside - Abolition of the carceral state is a fundamental political goal for the Left today: specifically, abolishing the carceral state’s logic and institution. Abolition is both a goal and a discourse: it informs the strategies we adopt, as well as the framework we use to critique the carceral state and describe alternatives. It is inherently forward-thinking: we are no closer to abolition than to the revolution. The question of how the Left should regard police unions is therefore a question of whether and how police unions fit into the goal of abolition. I argue that we must understand police officers as individuals, with different interests, experiences, and opinions about their work, in order to develop political strategies necessary in the long fight for abolition. Police unions can play a strategically useful role by reflecting this diversity of individuals and opening a conversation about the relationship between the conditions and consequences of law enforcement. Abolition is not around the corner: we have a long way to go in this battle. Reforms are therefore necessary, and happen as a result of strategic political action, not grandstanding. The carceral state is brutal, oppressive, and deadly, which is why we cannot afford to compromise our goal, and why we also can’t afford to reject political opportunities along the way – strategies, allies, tactics, etc.

Tell Trump, And Democrats: We Demand Black Community Control Of The Police

August 4, 2017 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com Resist! Police, Police Abolition, Reform

By Glen Ford for Black Agenda Report - The cops at a Long Island, New York, pro-police event “laughed and cheered” when President Trump urged them to brutalize immigrant prisoners – “animals,” as he called them. Then, caught in mid-guffaw, the supervisors and flaks for the bad boys and girls in blue struggled to straightened out their faces and disavow Trump’s remarks. “What the president recommended...is not what policing is about today,” claimed Steve Soboroff, a civilian commissioner of the Los Angeles Police Department, which is forever situating police brutality somewhere in the past. “The president’s comments stand in stark contrast to our department’s commitment to constitutional policies and community engagement,” said New Orleans police chief Michael Harrison. His city took until last December to reach a $13.3 million settlement for Katrina-related police murder and maiming of civilians. The International Association of Chiefs of Police hastily restated its policy “that any use of force is carefully applied and objectively reasonable considering the situation confronted by the officers” -- a statement that sounds very much like the standard legal defense presented in the miniscule fraction of police brutality cases that actually go to trial.

UC Irvine Black Student Union Demands End To Campus Police

January 30, 2016 Matt Coker, www.ocweekly.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), California, Police, Police Abolition, Student Protests, University of California

By Matt Coker for OC Weekly - According to an online petition, the Black Student Union at UC Irvine is demanding the abolition of the campus police department, calling contemporary police forces “modern incarnations of the antebellum plantation and slave patrols." The demand made via Change.org to UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman and the administrations of UCI and the University of California states, “The problem is that policing as an institution is unethical; it accompanies anti-Black violence.” There were 240 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon toward a goal of only 500.

«1 2 »

Daily movement news and resources