June 08, 2021

One Year Later: Looking Back At The George Floyd Protests As ONE CITY...

One year ago.... immediately following the murder of George Floyd was the summer of our discontent. Citizens of Stockton united, mobilized, organized, marched and protested for black lives and police reform. In response to these actions(during the 2020 election), the powers that be stopped, looked, listened, engaged and promised change. A City Manager's Review Board was assembled, and then...

As the county and the city prepare their respective annual budgets, it is prudent to review exactly what it is an unprecedented number of engaged citizens demanded of its local government last year...that it has yet to fulfill.

Though there were no open letters or demands comparable to the national movements among them, below are snapshots of the demands, the petitions, the graphics, the tips, and the event flyers, including a participatory budgeting and a people's budget.

The fight for transparency, accountability and answerability has yet to be won. Now is always the most opportune time to wage such a fight....

NAACP STOCKTON COALITION FOR SHARED SAFETY DEMANDS

Prior to the youth protest event, the organizers — primarily high school and college students, put together a list of five demands:

1. Charge all police officers involved in cases of police brutality across the nation, including opening up cases from the past.

2. Defund the Stockton Unified School District and Lincoln Unified School District police departments and invest those funds in restorative justice and resources to support alternatives to incarceration that are healing-centered.

3. Remove guns from law enforcement officers who have excessive use-of-force complaints or from officers involved in shooting unarmed persons.

4. Ban any zero-tolerance policies within our schools that criminalize children and treat them like criminals, not like children and students.

5. Introduce ethnic studies and black studies courses to schools to educate the youth and great leaders of tomorrow.

Members of My Local Government,

My name is ___ and I'm writing this blanket statement to tell you that I am saddened, horrified, and deeply unsettled by current events. While I am proud of my city for organizing in peace and solidarity, I am also troubled by the extreme show of force by police, and those supporting them.

Our city is both the most diverse, and one of the most dangerous, and yet we have remained peaceful even in the face of further oppression and danger.

I reach out to urge you to listen to us. To our voices. To the voices of our dead who no longer get a chance to cry out for Justice.

I am urging you to listen to the demands of the NAACP Stockton Branch as they call for police reform, and I am urging you to listen to the demands of those pushing for reform in our schools as well.

By rewriting the history we teach our children to paint a much more truthful narrative, I believe that we can end systematic racism and bias. But it starts with you. It starts with your acceptance of our pain, suffering, and heartache.

It starts with your acceptance of your power, and your duty to bring peace in times of unrest. As a local leader in any position of government it is your duty to hear the cries of a people silenced for far too long.

Please listen.

Sincerely, _____

♡No Justice, No Peace.

POLICE USE OF FORCE PROJECT

How police use of force policies can help to end police violence.

POLICE USE OF FORCE POLICIES CURRENTLY LACK BASIC PROTECTIONS AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE

These policies often fail to include common-sense limits on police use of force, including:

Failing to require officers to de-escalate situations, where possible, by communicating with subjects, maintaining distance, and otherwise eliminating the need to use force

Allowing officers to choke or strangle civilians, in many cases where less lethal force could be used instead, resulting in the unnecessary death or serious injury of civilians

Failing to require officers to intervene and stop excessive force used by other officers and report these incidents immediately to a supervisor

Failing to restrict officers from shooting at moving vehicles, which is regarded as a particularly dangerous and ineffective tactic

Failing to develop a Force Continuum that limits the types of force and/or weapons that can be used to respond to specific types of resistance

Failing to require officers to exhaust all other reasonable means before resorting to deadly force

Failing to require officers to give a verbal warning, when possible, before shooting at a civilian

Failing to require officers to report each time they use force or threaten to use force against civilians

RESOURCE LINKS:

Black Men Build / Black Men Build on The Breakfast Club

John Oliver Examines Past, Present, and Future of Policing in America

Andrew Yang - Six Ideas For Police Reform

Fair, Safe & Effective Community Policing

Police Accountability Pool

City Managers Citizens Review Board

Defunding The Police Letter To Stockton City Council

SUGGESTED POLICE REFORMS

Steps that involve holding the police accountable.

Require officers to alert supervisors any time they intentionally point a gun at someone, not just when they fire a weapon. A report must be created for data collection and evaluation purposes[^1].

Community Review Board

The Newark, New Jersey review board should serve as a template. It has a “degree of binding authority” that many other review boards lack. “If a complaint against an officer is substantiated, senior police officers will impose discipline determined by guidelines established by the panel. The panel’s recommendations could be overruled only if Newark’s police director establishes error in the board’s decision [^12].”

Police Union Contract - Limits on Oversight and Discipline

Currently, union contract language allows officers to overturn discipline through binding arbitration[^11].

Alternative Programs

CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets)

CAHOOTS is a mental health crisis intervention program in Eugene, Oregon that has been operating for 30 years. Calls to 911 that are related to addiction, disorientation, mental health crises, and homelessness which do not pose a physical danger to others are routed to CAHOOTS. Teams consisting of a medic (nurse or EMT) and an experienced crisis worker respond to provide immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis, assessment, information, referral, advocacy & (in some cases) transportation to the next step in treatment.

In 2017, Cahoots handled 17% of the 96,115 calls for service made to the Eugene police[^3]. In 2018, they handled almost 20% of the calls; the program cost Eugene $1.5 million a year for 40 employees plus its vehicles. The program is paid out of the Public Safety expenditures of the city [^4]. This program not only helps save and better lives, but is also fiscally conservative. CAHOOTS is already working with a number of cities - Olympia, Washington; Denver, Colorado; New York; Indianapolis, Indiana; Portland and Roseburg, Oregon - to implement similar programs [^5].

M.A.C.R.O. Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland

“M.A.C.R.O., the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland is a proposed pilot to respond to some 911 calls in Oakland with a counselor and an EMT instead of police. For the calls that don’t really require a badge and a gun, if they’re responded to by a M.A.C.R.O. type team it enables the police to spend their time on calls that are genuinely criminal or violent in nature.” - Anne Janks [^2]

“Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland’s citywide council member, successfully advocated last year for $40,000 from the city budget to be spent on a study on how best to implement the Oregon model there. The study investigated questions like: What’s the best way to complement existing mental health services without competing against them? Where in Oakland do most 911 calls related to mental illness originate? In which neighborhoods does it make most sense to concentrate a pilot program?” They are currently planning on launching a pilot program[^5].

Suggestion for Stockton City Council

While the results from Oakland’s pilot are coming in, a similar study for Stockton can be commissioned in 2020-2021. These results can then be used to implement and budget for a pilot program of our own in 2021-2022.

Transparency

Public Records

In 2018, the California Legislature passed SB1421, The Right To Know Act, which gives the public the right to see certain records relating to police misconduct and serious uses of force. Currently, only records of police misconduct that are available fall under these categories: serious uses of force, sexual assault, and dishonesty related to investigations. Records concerning other types of misconduct are still unavailable to the public in California[^7].

Suggestion for Stockton PD

Stockton PD should create a public database that would include reports of sexual assault, dishonesty related to investigations, and finally any incident where force is used against a member of the community or against a law enforcement officer. The report must include the following: the national origin, sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability, English language proficiency, and housing status of each civilian against whom a law enforcement. Each report should include the Badge Number of the Officer(s) involved in the report[^8].

Stockton PD should also create a local registry that compiles the following: Misconduct complaints (pending, sustained, and exonerated), discipline records, termination records, records of certification[^8].

Feedback requested on how this would affect hiring practices.

Release of Body Camera Footage

California’s AB 748 requires the release of body worn camera footage within 45 days of a critical incident[^9]. Although California is one of the few states with any rules with regards to how quickly footage has to be released, recent reforms show that we can do better.

Recently, the Washington D.C. Council passed a bill that would require the release of body-worn camera footage and the name of any officer involved within 72 hours of a deadly shooting or serious use of force. It would also prohibit officers from viewing body-worn camera footage when preparing incident reports and give the D.C. Council more authority to obtain footage for its own investigations[^10].

Suggestion for Stockton City Council

Stockton City Council should replicate the reforms passed by the D.C. Council.

Comments

Is there a public record of the types of calls made to the emergency service? That would allow us to calculate the savings provided by the Cahoots like service.
It may be worthwhile to contact Councilmember Kaplan from Oakland for advice on running a similar study.
Is there already a ban on no-knock warrants in drug cases?
CA accountability bill
Stockton Police Department Crime Data Explorer: https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/agency/CA0390500/arrest

References

[^1]: Denver police ban chokeholds, require officers to report when they point gun at someone

[^2]: Oakland considers policing model involving civilians responding to specific 911 calls

[^3]: When Mental-Health Experts, Not Police, Are the First Responders

[^4]: Oregon mobile crisis team from White Bird Clinic answering mental health calls without the police

[^5]: Oakland may send mental health experts, not police, for some 911 calls

[^6]: #DefundPolice Public Downloads

[^7]: Access to CA Police Records

[^8]: Justice in Policing Act

[^9]: Text - AB-748 Peace officers: video and audio recordings: disclosure.

[^10]: New Police Reform Bill Would Outlaw All Chokeholds In DC, Speed Release Of Bodycam Footage

[^11]: http://stocktonca.gov/files/MOUAgreement_SPOA_070119_063022.pdf

[^12]: Newark's Citizen Disciplinary Board Could Flex Rare Muscle Over Police

DEFUND12.ORG FORM LETTER

Email and mail government officials and council members to reallocate egregious police budgets towards education, social services, and dismantling racial injustice.

"12" = 🚓

Letter to Mayor and City Council

Stockton, CA

Send email Copy link

Email link not working correctly? You can copy and paste the recipients, subject and message individually below.

To:🔗 mayor@stocktonca.gov, dist1@stocktonca.gov, dist2@stocktonca.gov, dist3@stocktonca.gov, dist4@stocktonca.gov, dist5@stocktonca.gov, dist6@stocktonca.gov, florence.low@stocktonca.gov

Subject: [*** INSERT UNIQUE SUBJECT LINE ***]

Message: (Don't forget to replace the [x]'s with your information!)🔗

Dear Mayor Tubbs and City Council Members,

I am a resident of [YOUR DISTRICT]. I am writing to demand that the City Council adopts a budget for the people that prioritizes community well-being and redirects funding away from the police, including the proposed police funding increase of $3,311,169 in the upcoming year.

We are in the midst of widespread upheaval over the systemic violence of policing. Empty gestures and suggestions of “reform” are at this point unacceptable. I am demanding that our voices be heard now, and that real change be made to the way this city allocates its resources.

Support for communities in need is necessary now, more than ever. We demand that the City Council defund the SPD. I join the calls of those across the country to meaningfully reduce funding to the police department. I demand a budget that adequately and effectively meets the needs of impacted Stockton residents during this trying and uncertain time, when livelihoods are on the line. I demand a budget that supports community wellbeing, rather than empowering the police forces that tear us apart.

As the City Council, the budget proposal is in your hands. It is your duty to represent your constituents. I am urging you to completely revise the budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, and to fund people, not police. We must take immediate action on this issue.

Thank you for your time,

[YOUR NAME]

[YOUR ADDRESS]

[YOUR EMAIL]

[YOUR PHONE NUMBER]

STOCKTON STANDS WITH MINNEAPOLIS MISSION & LIST OF DEMANDS