2016-09-20 03:24:55 -0700
To: The White House, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services
Tell the Federal Government: Create an Interagency Task Force to Hold Police Accountable!
The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and its network of African-American churches across the country as well as a broad spectrum of black professionals, including attorneys, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists and others, are demanding that, using its full authority, the White House immediately establish and hold accountable a fully-funded interagency task force to monitor, investigate, and hold accountable all levels of public policing . We demand that this task force have the power and authority to withhold all federal funds from police departments whose practices ignore and condone the violation of the basic rights of American citizens, specifically black people. #NoEnd2RUnity
Why is this important?
American politicians point to the Constitution as the standard -bearer of law and order, but as the 14th Amendment is (and has historically been) violated as pertains to the treatment of black, brown and poor people, it is important to point out that black, brown and poor people are being denied "due process of law." The impulsive shootings and killings of African Americans by police officers are a violation and represent actions of misconduct in direct opposition to the United States' June 12, 2013 claim to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Until the laws and policies of police departments across this nation change, laws which in effect protect law enforcement officers regardless of evidence which has shown officers to be in the wrong, the indiscriminate killings of African Americans will continue.
The killings themselves are repulsive and regrettable, but the fact that so few officers are held accountable when evidence shows them to be guilty, adds to the mental distress and emotional trauma of family members who are left to deal with both their grief and anger because of the lack of justice they receive. The trauma that African Americans have experienced because of excessive police force with little to no accountability has been proven to be genetically passed on, meaning that African Americans today are not only coping with present-day violations of their rights, but with the historic miscarriage and lack of justice which has been part of their narrative.
We know that working to eliminate the trauma experienced by Black people in the United States is hard but we believe that establishing a task force, to police the police, will help. Please join us in demanding the immediate establishment of this task force!
How it will be delivered
We will email the petitions, use social media, and share with media outlets to further elevate our campaign. We will also be planning a press conference.