We Charge Genocide is a grassroots, inter-generational, volunteer effort to center the voices and experiences of the young people most targeted by police and most impacted by police violence in Chicago. We offer a vehicle for needed organizing and social transformation to resist police violence in Chicago. The name, We Charge Genocide, comes from a petition filed to the United Nations in 1951 that documented 153 racial killings and other human rights abuses across the United States, mostly by the local police. Today, police violence in Chicago continues to violate human rights principles as seen in the daily harassment, abuse, and targeting of youth of color by CPD officers.
Following the legacy of our name, We Charge Genocide has submitted a report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture: Police Violence Against Chicago’s Youth of Color. The report reveals the disturbing and intolerable truth that police officers regularly engage torture. Specifically, the Chicago Police Department is in violation of Articles 2, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14 of the Convention of Torture through the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of youth of color in Chicago
To many an American the police are the government, certainly its most visible representative.
Our report will be presented to the Committee as part of their upcoming 53rd session, during which the U.S. will be under review. We will urge the Committee to find the CPD’s treatment of young people of color as torture, suggest federal intervention, and demand a response from the CPD regarding how the department plans to further end this treatment and fully compensate the communities impacted by this violence. We also aim to draw international attention to our organizing efforts to further energize and support our local, ongoing campaign efforts for police accountability.
Evidence suggests that the killing of Negroes has become police policy in the United States…police policy is the most practical expression of government policy
This multi-media site augments and extends our case against the CPD for its torture and mistreatment of youth of color in Chicago. Here you will find individual stories of victims and survivors of Chicago police violence. You will be able to understand the scope and the impact of this violence by exploring maps, reading testimonies and putting faces to the numbers. Both the report and site are unique and are the result of dozens of hours of work by Chicago residents who have volunteered their time because they believe that CPD violence must end now.