HomeMy WebLinkAboutRacial Equity in San Luis Obispo and City Budget
Christian, Kevin
From:Rachel Lane <rachellane92@gmail.com>
Sent:Wednesday, June 3, 2020 9:58 AM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Racial Equity in San Luis Obispo and City Budget
Dear City Council,
My name is Rachel Lane and I am a resident of San Luis Obispo.
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and thousands more Black citizens have been murdered and
violently targeted because of our country’s systemically racist criminal justice system and lack of accountability in our policing
system.
Less than 1% of police officers are held accountable for the lives they have taken. This encourages police officers to act with
impunity. Black Americans are targeted and harassed every single day. Here in SLO, a peaceful Black protester was
purposefully rammed with a car by someone who targeted her because of her race and her courage to speak against injustice.
In light of these events, I ask that in your review of the 2020-21 budget, you reallocate funds currently directed toward the
police department to other programs including public health and education. I ask that you immediately begin to develop a
plan to demilitarize police in SLO county and increase police transparency. Body cameras should be non-negotiable and always
on. Footage should be reviewed by an independent group that is not regulated by the police. The community needs to see a
line item police budget letting us know where our tax money is going. As a community member, I want to fund schools, not
riot gear to be used against peaceful protestors, including young children. I also request that a specific line item in the city
budget be dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Please reallocate funds to support alternative strategies for keeping our community safe, such as community policing, mental
health care, community development, and housing support. SLO needs to initiate an action plan to create a framework of
equity to support Black community members. Not acting in support of Black Americans is acting against their health and
safety. Racism is a public health emergency, and Black people continue to die as we dither on the sidelines. Please work with
Black community leaders to develop a meaningful action plan to support equity and justice in San Luis Obispo.
San Luis Obispo is an incredible place, filled with incredible people, including the honorable members of the City Council. We
have the opportunity to take action now and be national leaders in the fight against injustice. This is a huge issue, 400 years in
the making, but we must begin today to demonstrate a tangible commitment to beginning the work of addressing systemic
racism in San Luis Obispo.
Thank you for your time, energy, and commitment to making San Luis Obispo a better place.
All the best,
Rachel Lane
Please see the below text from MPD 150 on ways to reimagine safety and community policing in communities:
“PRESENTED BY MPD150: MPD150.COM
Building a Police-Free Future: Frequently Asked Questions
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We believe in the power, possibility, and necessity of a police-free future. We also understand, however, that this is a
new idea for many people. What follows are some frequently-asked questions, and our responses to them.
Won’t abolishing the police create chaos and crime? How will we stay safe?
Police abolition work is not about snapping our fingers and instantly defunding every department in the world. Rather,
we’re talking about a gradual process of strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police
and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention.
The people who respond to crises in our community should be the people who are best-equipped to deal with those
crises. Rather than strangers armed with guns, who very likely do not live in the neighborhoods they’re patrolling, we
want to create space for more mental health service providers, social workers, victim/survivor advocates, religious
leaders, neighbors and friends– all of the people who really make up the fabric of a community– to look out for one
another.
But what about armed bank robbers, murderers, and supervillains?
Crime isn’t random. Most of the time, it happens when someone has been unable to meet their basic needs through
other means. So to really “fight crime,” we don’t need more cops; we need more jobs, more educational opportunities,
more arts programs, more community centers, more mental health resources, and more of a say in how our own
communities function.
Sure, in this long transition process, we may need a small, specialized class of public servants whose job it is to respond
to violent crimes. But part of what we’re talking about here is what role police play in our society. Right now, cops don’t
just respond to violent crimes; they make needless traffic stops, arrest petty drug users, harass Black and Brown people,
and engage in a wide range of “broken windows policing” behaviors that only serve to keep more people under the
thumb of the criminal justice system.
But why not fund the police and fund all these alternatives too? Why is it an either/or?
It’s not just that police are ineffective: in many communities, they’re actively harmful. The history of policing is a history
of violence against the marginalized– American police departments were originally created to dominate and criminalize
communities of color and poor white workers, a job they continue doing to this day. The list has grown even longer:
LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, activists– so many of us are attacked by cops on a daily basis.
And it’s bigger than just police brutality; it’s about how the prison industrial complex, the drug war, immigration law,
and the web of policy, law, and culture that forms our criminal justice system has destroyed millions of lives, and torn
apart families. Cops don’t prevent crime; they cause it, through the ongoing, violent disruption of our communities.
It’s also worth noting that most social service agencies and organizations that could serve as alternatives to the police
are underfunded, scrambling for grant money to stay alive while being forced to interact with officers who often make
their jobs even harder. In 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department received $165 million in city funding alone. Imagine
what that kind of money could do to keep our communities safe if it was reinvested.
Even people who support the police agree: we ask cops to solve too many of our problems. As former Dallas Police Chief
David Brown said: “We’re asking cops to do too much in this country... Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to
solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it... Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; let’s have
the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops... That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to
solve all those problems.”
What about body cameras? What about civilian review boards, implicit bias training, and community policing initiatives?
Video footage (whether from body cameras or other sources) wasn’t enough to get justice for Philando Castile, Samuel
DuBose, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, and far too many other victims of police violence. A single implicit bias training session
can’t overcome decades of conditioning and department culture. Other reforms, while often noble in intention, simply
do not do enough to get to the root of the issue.
History is a useful guide here: community groups in the 1960s also demanded civilian review boards, better training, and
community policing initiatives. Some of these demands were even met. But universally, they were either ineffective, or
dismantled by the police department over time. Recent reforms are already being co-opted and destroyed: just look at
how many officers are wearing body cameras that are never turned on, or how quickly Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department
has moved to end consent decrees. We have half a century’s worth of evidence that reforms can’t work. It’s time for
something new.
This all sounds good in theory, but wouldn’t it be impossible to do?
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Throughout US history, everyday people have regularly accomplished “impossible” things, from the abolition of slavery,
to voting rights, to the 40-hour workweek, and more. What’s really impossible is the idea that the police departments
can be reformed against their will to protect and serve communities whom they have always attacked. The police, as an
institution around the world, have existed for less than 200 years– less time than chattel slavery existed in the Americas.
Abolishing the police doesn’t need to be difficult– we can do it in our own cities, one dollar at a time, through
redirecting budgets to common-sense alternative programs. Let’s get to work!
FIND MORE RESOURCES ON BUILDING A POLICE-FREE FUTURE AT MPD150.COM“
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