General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPolice violence. We must do what we can to help prevent it.
Even if you are in a blue town in a blue state, let your Mayor and town or city council members and town meeting members know that you want police trained differently and will hold local leaders accountable for how police behave. (Cambridge is a blue town in a blue state, and look what happened to Professor Gates, an older man who walks with a cane, guilty of returning home tired--and at the hands of the cop who teaches classes on racial sensitivity, no less.)
Write your newspapers, too, whatever is left of them.
Organize a peaceful demonstration outside your city hall.
If your city or town has a local cable access station, see if you can get on one of the shows to urge people in your area to contact their local government to insist on different kinds of training for law enforcement.
I am having trouble thinking of more suggestions right now.
Here is a link to an organization that is active and will remain active around the issue of police killing people of color.
http://www.handsupunited.org/join-the-movement/
On edit: Michael Brown's mom asks that we join the Brown family to fight for every cop in the country to wear a body camera.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/ferguson-darren-wilson-shooting-michael-brown-grand-jury.html?_r=0
I would still push for re-training, too, because a film of a dead person is not ideal. Though it should help bring the trigger happy to justice, preventing a death is preferable.
It also occurs to me that you can contact a state legislator that you think will be friendly to the causes mentioned in this post and ask him or her to sponsor a bill. And/or, you can google how to file a citizen's bill in your state.
If you know of other organizations working on this, please post the links on this thread. Please also post your suggestions for ways to be pro-active to prevent more deaths.
NanceGreggs
(27,822 posts)... on a whole lot of things, merrily. But everything you have suggested here has a great deal of merit, and the makings of actually effecting change, rather than just talking about it on a website.
Well said, and well done.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Jeff Rosenzweig
(121 posts)Thank you.
merrily
(45,251 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)KMOD
(7,906 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)MineralMan
(146,366 posts)That's an important lesson to be learned here.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)So far it has worked well.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)I'm posting a link so that people can chime in, no matter where you live.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LAPDBodyWornVideo
merrily
(45,251 posts)MerryBlooms
(11,778 posts)Excellent post.
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