To all the wonderful people of Change - this is not easy. I've been sharing this petition for three weeks, and am so glad we are nearing 700 supporters - but I need help. I've spent $300 posting and promoting this petition to various platforms, and reaching out to local news outlets with little success. I need your help, anyone reading this. If you have ideas or have worked with similar causes and petitions, please reach out to me. I'm a single white man living in a city of white people - and that fact (whether they admit it or not) is why our officials don't want cameras. There argument is that there is not enough "crime or complaints" and cameras are a "complete waste of money". How do we know if they are not showing us? If our community was more diverse, they would probably already have cameras. Racism runs strong in the weak veins of this country, covered by a thin tarp filled with holes.

As time goes on I see more and more awful videos of people being racially profiled, with guns being pointed at them, and the only evidence is the person holding up a phone camera. Without that person and that camera - there is no telling what could have happened, because without video evidence, there is no proof - only a story to be told. A story usually filled with lies and half truths, and I say no more. 

It saddens me to say this but the great city of Portsmouth has a terrible Police Commission. They can't make room for 1% of their budget to hold themselves accountable. Our community is less safe with 70 officers patrolling the streets without any equipment other than equipment meant to kill, maim, and detain. No citizen should have to live in fear that they may be pulled over, or off the street, and murdered because no one was around to record it. Cameras are basic policing equipment, have been for decades. Get with the times Portsmouth, and hurry it the fuck up.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-open-fire-on-children-stop-sign/?fbclid=IwAR0_jZvoD8eMyPEi5an6tS_yB21joDadADlO1ciYhSofLJBvscqcQ2TMinc (At least this department has cameras)

https://youtu.be/Mk7mPnEgbu4 (Cameras showing a man being shot by an officer who was tased by another officer - the incompetence is immense. Of course all their faces are blurred, and some officers cover their cameras with straps.)

https://youtu.be/vSAnY0I-jHM (Body camera footage of man laying on the ground, kicked in the face full force, screaming, as the same officer lays on his neck)

https://youtu.be/4SjbBTQuDss (A black man screaming for help as thugs shoot him three times for holding a phone)