On July 5, 2016, members of the Maplewood police department participated in racial profiling and police brutality against a group of black teenagers, resulting in the arrest of four South Orange and Maplewood teenagers. The Maplewood teenager who was arrested was punched and kicked by police officers while handcuffed and face down on the ground. Six officers were disciplined for this action, but none were fired or charged. Teenagers were being herded out of their home towns and prevented from returning in an act of ignorance and racial profiling. They were also pepper sprayed when they resisted. The identities of the officers were never released. As far as the public knows, all six officers disciplined remain on the force. As members of the public, we deserve to know if the officers actively policing our streets have committed acts of racially charged brutality. This town has built its image on diversity and equality, but has consistently fallen short when it comes to protecting those ideologies. Maplewood Township has repeatedly claimed that we as a town will be working towards police reform, but how can we reform if we do not acknowledge the past?

Because I am an African American male and my brothers friends are being over charged , indicted, over sentencing

Every year our states celebrate the Fourth of July to honor our nation’s independence from Great Britain, in 1776. The United States continued to deny freedom to enslaved Africans for almost another 100 years. We still do not have a national holiday celebrating the official end of the brutal enslavement our Ancestors endured. Despite Abraham Lincoln’s efforts with the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation that took effect on January 1, 1863, the executive order was not enforced in Texas until June 19th when Union Gen. Gordon Granger rode in to deliver the news after the official end of the Civil War, in 1865. Even though the E.P. took place in 1863, Texas was considered a fringe state. As a young mixed Black womxn, moving through Oakland public schools did not allow me the opportunity to learn about my heritage and/or ancestors in the way that I believe we should have. Only after graduating have I come to understand our history and the importance of Juneteenth. Juneteenth marks a day of the utmost significance in American history. It represents the ways in which freedom for Black people has been delayed. It should be celebrated as the day when all Americans were liberated.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office currently has 40% of Jacksonville's budget and yet only 31.5% of homicides are solved. We demand a people's budget to create a more equitable allocation of funds. For these reasons as well as transparency, and accountability we are demanding community control of the police, complete transparency and full accountability in investigations. This means immediate release of body cam footage and jailing killer cops.

JSO refused to notify Kwamae’s mother of his death. They lied on multiple occasions about the age of the victims of the shooting, stating initially that it was two 22 year old males. It was almost 2 weeks before his mother was able to see his body. JSO has a pattern of murdering young black males and not being held accountable.

The International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) covers up and promotes racist behavior. You, as a member of SAG-AFTRA, are currently associated with the police union, because both unions are members of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO). We want the leadership of SAG-AFTRA to demand that the AFL-CIO remove the IUPA from membership. The WGA-East did it. We should too. SAG-AFTRA put out a statement that essentially asked the police union to police themselves. Link to the June 11th statement: https://www.sagaftra.org/statement-police-unions-and-building-more-racially-just-and-equitable-society This is not enough. If the AFL-CIO does not disassociate from the police union, they (and we) will be implicit in future police murders of Black Americans. Share widely with your fellow SAG-AFTRA members! Full text of the letter we will be sending to SAG-AFTRA: "To the SAG-AFTRA leadership: We are writing to ask you to join in solidarity with the Writer’s Guild of America, East, in calling for the removal of the IUPA from the AFL-CIO membership, and to ask other affiliate unions who represent police unions to reconsider those relationships. We, too, believe that police unions are incompatible with the AFL-CIO’s stated goals ‘to vanquish oppression, privation and cruelty in all their forms.’ Too often, police unions serve directly against the interest of workers. The history of policing is filled with violent strikebreaking and labor movement suppression. As recently as 2018, police arrested 75 of our Unite Here members who were striking for better wages and working conditions. We appreciate the explicit clarity in SAG-AFTRA’s June 11th statement that Black Lives Matter. However, in terms of the recommendations to our affiliate unions, the statement falls short. Recent events have made it quite clear that as long as police unions exist to shield officers from accountability, police departments cannot and will not police their own. We must disassociate from these unions who work in opposition to our principles and endanger our members. We urge you to call on the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO to enact the process described in Article X, section 8(b) of the AFL-CIO Constitution to suspend the AFL-CIO’s affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA), on the constitutional grounds that ‘the policies or activities of [the IUPA] are consistently directed toward the achievement of the program or purposes of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, terrorism and other forces that suppress individual liberties and freedom of association and oppose the basic principles of free and democratic trade unionism.’ We also suggest that, like the WGAE, you call on other member unions of the AFL-CIO that represent police officers (such as AFSCME) to strongly consider whether those affiliations align with the goals of our labor movement. We urge officers, staff, and leadership within these unions to commit to contracts that do not evade accountability, to do the work of eradicating racism within their ranks, and to uphold their promise to serve and protect all people equally. Signed, Members of SAG-AFTRA"

Robert Fuller was found lynched on Monday, June 8th. A passerby noticed a man, later identified as Robert L. Fuller, hanging from a tree in Palmdale, California. Palmdale city described it as "an alleged death by suicide." Fire department personnel who responded to the scene determined he was dead on arrival. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department issued a statement. “That they are fully cooperative in investigation process.” What we do know is; where Robert Fuller was hung there happened to be no surveillance cameras in the area! It is our hope his death isn’t racially driven but until then we will treat it as such! We want to bring justice to Robert Fuller and his family! Also call DA Matthew Ditzhazy at: 661-267-5108. Demanding justice!

On March 28, 2019, Javier Ambler - a resident of Austin, Texas was driving home early in the morning with his brights on and passed by a Williamson County Deputy J.J. Johnson. This resulted in a police chase where he crashed his car five times and was continually and tased by the officers that apprehended him. He got out of his car with his HANDS RAISED but could not physically put his hands behind his back due to obesity. He was outnumbered, tased and forcibly restrained. Ambler's pleas for mercy and warning of his severe heart condition were ignored and he soon passed away on a neighborhood street. Over a year has passed- footage of his untimely death (that the Williamson County Sheriff's Office withheld) has been released granting his family closure but not justice. The Williamson Country Sheriff's Office has not held Deputy J.J. Johnson and Deputy Zachary Camden accountable for their actions. By signing this petition you are urging that the deputies who wrongfully abused and murdered Javier Ambler are suspended from their positions and charged. Please sign and share. Black lives matter!!!!!!!We demand JUSTICE for Javier Ambler!!!!!!!

The violence black people experience at the hands of police, and the racial disparity in incarceration rates in NJ is cruel, intolerably high, and must end. Inclusion of African Americans on the PTC allows representation for the most adversely affected community to help shape Police training and policy statewide. It provides African Americans with influence over creating and implementing changes to end systemic racism in policing, which leads to violence, including death, and over representation in prison and jail populations.

The same police that are killing Black people in the streets and that continue to harass Black youth in the community, are the same police that are in our schools. We cannot continue to put our youth in harms way! We demand POLICE FREE SCHOOLS! We demand an end to the school-to-prison pipeline. It is simple: Black youth in D.C have been screaming "Love Us. Don't Harm Us"- divest from police in our schools and invest in the social-emotional health and well-being of youth! D.C is the MOST POLICED jurisdiction in America and Metropolitan Police Department's largest contract is with D.C. Public Schools. MPD currently receives $25 million to police and criminalize our youth! This increases the likelihood that adolescent behavior or responses to trauma will not be met with support but further harm. 74% of Black youth will not get the support they need. Instead: - Nearly 100% of all school expulsions are of Black youth, nearly 100% of school based arrest are of youth of color - D.C. police are also responsible for harassing and handcuffing Black youth as young as 9 years old. - 60% of girls arrested in D.C are under the age of 15. - Black girls in D.C are 30 times more likely to be arrested than white youth of any gender identity. - Often girls are disciplined and referred to police for their responses to sexual violence. This creates an unsafe and unwelcoming environment for girls, and compounds the trauma that survivors of gender base violence experience. Always, but especially now, our Black youth need love, not harm! We need to ensure that our young people have what they need to learn, that our young people have increased access to mental health professionals to address the heightened trauma caused by COVID -19 and, rampant police violence and racism. We need your support to protect Black and Brown youth from further harm and to preserve their right to live and thrive!

The eight demands from Campaign Zero cannot reduce police violence by 72%. It is a faulty claim and they do not have the research to support it. The campaign does not account for all kinds of police violence in the first place, yet they are using faulty data to spread that 8 reforms can reduce police violence. Even if they use police killings instead of violence, the data simply does not support. Almost every demand is purely subjective. What does it mean to "require a warning before shooting?" Two seconds? Five seconds? Ten seconds? Why would the same police officers who are escalating in the streets decide to follow "de-escalation" when they are off camera and in our communities? What about the police officers who want to escalate? For example, Chicago Police Department, according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, already has all 8 policies, yet remains one of the most brutal departments in the country. They require deescalation, and alternative use of force, and intervention, but several officers still surrounded Officer Jason Van Dyke as he shot LaQuan McDonald 16 times. Many departments have already implemented these policies and it has not reduced the likelihood of police violence. The department level. The Minneapolis Police Department implemented at least half of these reforms, and George Floyd was still murdered. San Francisco adopted every single one of the policies put forth by the #8cantwait, but received an F in their related Police Scorecard. Herein lies the issue: police violence does not match neatly to statistics in the ways that campaign zero puts forth in these 8 demands. Mayors and even police departments are eager to adopt the #8CantWait demands, demonstrating that they would much rather continue to implement reforms that don't require any significant change to policing. Organizations like the Movement 4 Black Lives, Dignity & Power Now, Black Youth Project 100, and Black Lives Matter network are echoing the demand to ‘defund the police’- even climate organizations like 350.org have joined in the chorus pushing towards more transformative demands. Black people - all people - deserve more.

We have all seen at one time or another just how incredibly powerful voting with our dollars really can be, and right this very moment, there are thousands of businesses which have significant dollar-voting power and a unique ability to stop police brutality and demand sweeping reform of the criminal justice system. In the wake of both endless and recent blatant abuse of power & criminal violence and terror put upon innocent civilians and peaceful protestors, our country and the values we believe in are in a dire state of emergency. It is up to us, as the people of the United States to hold our elected officials accountable. The quickest way to earn their attention to the point they are willing to make REAL reformative and sweeping changes to the criminal justice system is if we the people use our power to restrict their access to funds. How can we do that? Simple. We demand the public condemning and severing of ties from businesses, executives, sporting teams, schools, universities, little leagues, concerts, events and more to cancel their contracts with the criminal police forces immediately until reform happens. Other businesses which provide services to corrupt police forces will also be called on to publicly distance themselves in a peaceful act of protest by canceling their service contracts as well until real reform conditions are met. We can do this!!!!