10/21/20
Sign up HERE to attend CM Kitchen’s Forum TONIGHT @ 5:30 pm
Council Member Kitchen is holding a community forum TONIGHT on “reimagining public safety”. We need our city council and CM Kitchen to stop imagining and to start acting. To do that, CM Kitchen needs to hear from us.
Let Kitchen know that Reimagining Public Safety is NOT Enough!
Tonight we want to send a clear and unified message that reimagining public safety is NOT enough! Use these talking points to keep the conversation focused on the lives and safety of Black and Brown Austinites.
- Imagining a change in Chief Manley’s department is NOT enough. We need APD leadership to be held accountable for their failures. Racial profiling in Austin has gotten worse since Manley took office. We need to change our Police chief.
- Imagining police being less violent is NOT enough. We need individual police officers to be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. Everyperson who died at the hands of police in 2018 was a person of color. We need to remove police from the situations that they are not well suited for and have a history of making worse.
- Imagining how to invest money in the community is NOT enough. We need money taken out of the APD budget in August to stay out. We need city investments in public health, affordable housing, and community-based violence prevention and response programs.
- Imagining one more resolution, study, or promise that will create change is NOT enough. Our city council has passed multiple resolutions and commissioned studies that statistically show the systemic racism in APD. We need solutions that stop racist policing.
- Re-Imagining institutional racism away is NOT enough. CM Kitchen acknowledges that there is institutional racism. We need Ann Kitchen to acknowledge her role in the institution and to take an active stance in creating antiracist policies.
Register for the forum HERE and display your D5 for Black Lives yard sign in the background. You can find additional information and talking points HERE. See you tonight at 5:30 pm!
In addition, join us this coming SUNDAY at 3:00 pm for our second event: “A World Without Policing” workshop. We will explore the difference between police reform and police abolition. RSVP here. In Solidarity,
District 5 for Black Lives Organizing Team