Racial Justice Plan 2020 Muncie / Delaware County 

Eleven Steps Toward Justice and Peace

After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others; many leaders and institutions are acknowledging the racist underpinnings of American society. However, we must go beyond public statements, forums, and marches and create an actionable plan with measurable objectives to ensure we adequately disrupt systemic racism in our country and community. With that clear objective in mind,

We call for the following:

On Sunday, May 31st, BSU President Geoffrey Mearns tweeted that he was meeting the next day with local leaders, including law enforcement officials, to develop a collaborative campus and community response to stand in solidarity with Black and Brown community members.

1.       We call for this collaborative plan to be made available for public review by July 4th, 2020. We understand that individual entities have released statements, but a collaborative one was promised and we believe there’s power in collaboration. We call for a plan to be formulated with each participating party signing to reflect said collaboration.

On November 7th, 2017, a county jail officer held down an unarmed black man at gunpoint and threatened to murder him. One of the responses was the creation of a Civilian Review Committee to bridge the gap between law enforcement and community members by reviewing complaints, policies, and procedures. The CRC is a diverse group of Delaware County residents and operates under the Muncie Human Rights Office. The Muncie Police Department has appointed an officer to serve on this board.

2.       We call for the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department and the BSU Police Department to cooperate with the CRC by appointing one officer to this board by July 31st, 2020.

Our police departments do not currently reflect the diversity of their communities.

3.       We call for the ethnic makeup of each of the law enforcement forces of Delaware County to reflect 2020 census data for their communities by December 31st, 2020.

4.       If this is deemed unattainable, We call for aggressive recruitment practices designed to incentivize enough officers of color to join to reflect census data by December 31st, 2022.

Suggested Ideas:

A) Recruitment of graduating Criminal Justice students of color from colleges/universities. 

B) Establishing a 6-month – 1-year police mentoring program to build relationships/trust with future candidates and ensuring they will pass both written and physical tests.

C) Offering Financial incentives such as unprecedented (meaning above what’s historically been offered) signing bonuses etc.

We are monitoring what is transpiring around the country as it relates to Police reform. Many ideas are coming to the forefront and several municipalities are acting swiftly.

5.        We call for a review of the 8 Can’t Wait which can be seen at 8cantwait.org and adopting these policies as a minimal step by July 31st, 2020.

In order to lead in a way that respects minority communities instead of alienating them we believe professors, teachers, pastors, educational administrators, health care workers, and law enforcement officers must understand implicit bias as well as what it is like to live in poverty.

6.       We call for all school districts, universities, law enforcement departments, and the hospital to schedule research-based implicit bias training and research-based poverty simulations that clergy are invited to monitor by September 30th, 2020 and complete them by December 31st, 2020.

Data demonstrates that drug use is equivalent across ethnic groups but drug arrests disproportionately affect communities of color.

7.       We call for all police departments to release data about drug arrests, itemized by ethnicity, by July 31st, 2020.

8.       We call for all police departments to make public their plans to reduce disproportionality in drug arrests by August 31st, 2020. We call for these plans to address the problem of targeted police patrols in communities of color.

Prosecution and severity of sentencing disproportionately affects people of color, thereby contributing to mass incarceration. When police officers have committed a violent crime (including excessive force or domestic assault), they are not always quickly held accountable.

9.       We call for the prosecutor’s office to implement equivalent charges for equivalent crimes and to recommend equivalent sentencing for all ethnic groups. We call for the prosecutor to publicly release data, itemized by ethnic group, on charges and sentencing for Delaware County by July 31st, 2020.

10.   We call for the prosecutor’s office to publicly release their plan for timely prosecution of law enforcement officers accused of violent crimes by August 30th, 2020.

The panel of the June 3rd, 2020 forum to address police violence was mostly white leaders speaking to the audience about their plans to address racism. Our constituents have always had to do the listening first in times like these. We would like their voices to be heard unfiltered by us.

11.   We call for the panel participants of the June 3rd forum to attend a second community forum, in the Whitely neighborhood during the week of July 12th, 2020, at which they listen to African American panelists and field direct community questions.

We insist that these measurable steps are reasonable and are convinced that they will begin the journey toward dismantling systemic racism. While we would not condone community members engaging in destruction of property, we understand the anger at not receiving justice through legal and societal structures.

We desire to work with our community leaders to address systemic racism and injustice. However, if our community leaders will not exert their considerable influence to achieve these measurable goals, we will not be able to exert our considerable influence to contain the public displays of anger that may occur. We will let the public know which leaders respond to this plan and which do not.

Rev. Robert Scaife

President, Collective Coalition of Concerned Clergy

Senior Pastor, Union Missionary Baptist Church

Former Detective, Muncie Police Department

WaTasha Barnes Griffin

CEO, YWCA of Muncie

President, Muncie Black Expo

Yvonne Thompson

Executive Director, Muncie Human Rights Commission

Rev. Andre Mitchell

Senior Pastor, Deliverance Temple

Board Member, Muncie Children’s Museum

Joseph Anderson

CEO, Muncie Housing Authority

President, NAACP Muncie Branch

Anitra Davis

City Councilperson, District 6, City of Muncie

Leslie Draper

Executive Director, Inspire Academy

Rev. Dr. Andrew T. Draper

Senior Pastor, Urban Light Community Church

Chairperson, Muncie Human Rights Civilian Review Committee

And YOU!