In the city where I grew up, police brutality was an issue rarely discussed because it was common, something that often happened to my closest friends and me. Parlier, California, is a poverty-stricken Hispanic community. In this small town, gang violence was a common occurrence and police encounters were a must.
It was well understood early on that the local police department was the enemy. The homeboys often experienced police brutality. We all shared information concerning some police officers we especially disliked.
An incident I still remember happened at the local high school.
Three months ago, the entire nation was rocked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. In the weeks since his murder, a movement has taken shape to demand not only an end to policing, but a refocusing on community-led public safety that saves lives by stopping the use of officers with a firearm in our neighborhoods.
This national reckoning is based on decades of righteous and rightful anger from Black organizers and community members on the front lines of combating violence. Communities across the country have taken steps to scale back ever-growing police budgets, to strip departments of military-grade equipment that terrorize our streets and to invest in public safety and mental health without putting communities at further risk.
But while our nation finally tackles systemic racism, economic inequality and discriminatory policing, we’re also experiencing a surge in gun violence — disproportionately impacting communities of color. Shootings in New York are up 53% from the same time last year; in Chicago they’re up 46%, in Atlanta, 23%. This summer of violence has taken the lives of dozens of children across the country, including Amaria Jones, a 13-year-old who was killed in her living room by a stray bullet while showing her mom a TikTok video.
The coronavirus pandemic and the countless deaths of Black people have exposed and exacerbated the systemic racial inequities and lack of access to opportunities for Black, Brown and Indigenous people — the same people who bear the brunt of the gun violence pandemic.
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — By 9:10 p.m. the only sound audible between protesters’ chants was the distant buzz of two drones high above City Hall on Monday. One belonged to the Schenectady Police Department (SPD), which monitored over 100 protesters who had locked arms at the intersection of Clinton and Liberty streets. The other belonged to a local photographer who had joined the protest, and monitored the police presence in the surrounding blocks. As Monday night turned to Tuesday morning, the crowd, which had occupied the City Hall area and the surrounding streets for nine hours, prepared for police to come after them. Some wore vests that could stop rubber bullets, others long pants to protect against tear gas.
The protest started peacefully with a diverse group gathering at police headquarters. Fathers holding toddlers on their shoulders stood next to young demonstrators wearing black masks and college-aged students accompanied by their boomer parents.
After weeks of emotionally charged youth-led protests calling for sweeping reforms to root racism out of the criminal justice system in the streets, the New York City Council passed a package of bills today targeting the New York Police Department for major changes.
The young girl is weeping and terrified, surrounded by members of the New York Police Department, her hands cuffed behind her back while outraged protesters shout a mix of pleas and threats to let her go. The chaotic scene was captured on a 21-second snippet of video that was deleted from Twitter about 10 minutes after being posted.
In August, an 11-year-old African-American girl was tased by a Cincinnati police officer when he tried to apprehend her for shoplifting. The news was greeted, predictably, with dismay by officials there.
