police violence

My name is Travis Washington. I will be graduating with an M. A, degree in Higher Education and Administration from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in May 2019. I have been politically involved, from registering people to vote, to work in the Springfield Capitol (as an Alexander Lane Fellow, January to May 2017). We know how so many people of cultural minorities are in constant fear of leaving their household. This fear in our lives far too often comes from individuals working in public safety who harm people. Every single week we hear about another unarmed innocent vulnerable human being shot by the police. This has increased the trauma and fear that has made people of color scared to leave their homes. We need legislation now that prohibits police officers from shooting unarmed citizens. If there isn’t a weapon found after someone has been shot (therefore, unarmed) by a police officer, then I propose that the officer should receive a mandatory 15-year prison sentence. We have seen over and over police officers get off, even with videotape footage of citizens having been shot by police officers. This is a new form of lynching. I am pleading with you to propose a bill that protects people who have every right to feel threatened by law enforcement. We always say we need more training for those involved in public safety, and there are increasing policies and laws that mandate that police officers have “body cameras” on them. Those measures do not address the whole problem, not when the individual officers who shoot unarmed victims aren’t punished. Senator, we are in a crisis where relationships between people of color and police officers are deteriorating, beyond the critical level. In order to build any sort of positive relationships again, we need laws to keep a balance in the lives of all the public. I might even suggest this as a title for this proposed legislation: the Hands UP ACT. I will be emailing this to the all of your colleagues in the U. S. Senate, members of Congress, State Governors; Democracy Now, the Huffington Post, ThinkProgress; and to other appropriate organizations across the country. Once this petition receives enough attention. My goal to speak before the House of Representatives or United Nations during a committee hearing to bring attention to this policy.  Thank You !!  

Dear Secretary of State Tillerson,The State Department should suspend licenses to ship firearms to Mexican military and police until the U.S. can ensure they do not go to forces that collude with organized crime or violate human rights. Gun homicides in Mexico this year are the highest on record. Yet: • U.S. legal gun exports to the Mexican military, which distributes guns to state and local police, are nearly ten times what they were in 2001-2004; • the State Department licensed $266 million worth of gun sales by the U.S. gun producer Sig Sauer to the Mexican military; and • the Mexican Army sells guns to police with no verifiable mechanisms to track U.S. firearm shipments. As a result, U.S. companies have exported assault weapons to police that violate human rights and collude with organized crime, including police who attacked and disappeared 43 students from Ayotzinapa. The two major earthquakes that shook Mexico in September caused billions of dollars in damages to homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Two hundred fifty thousand Mexicans lost their homes. U.S.-Mexico trade should benefit the majority of people in both countries, not arm forces that are destroying families and causing them to flee in search of refuge. The United States must stop weapons exports to end users in the Mexican military and police for whom there is documentation of collusion with organized crime or commission of gross human rights violations, until they have been brought to justice.

Please sign the petition to name Larpentuer ave Philando Castile’s Memorial Ave  ! On July 6th 2016 Philando Castile was killed by a police officer, followed 2 miles from highway 280 to larpentuer & fry ave then being fatally  shot five times after being stopped for a broken tail light. After the death of Philando many community members poured out their love and support by creating a memorial space on larpentuer for Philando and we feel it would be helpful to our healing by dedicating the street he died on in the state he loved by renaming the intersection Philando Castile’s Memorial Ave. Philando was a humanitarian who loved his community, he worked for the Saint Paul school district for over 11 years , he served lunch to over 500 students who he loved and adored . 

We, the undersigned, join the Booker family in calling on Denver District Attorney Beth McCann to reopen the criminal investigation into the 2010 killing of Marvin Booker, with specific attention to the discrepancies in testimony and evidence around how the taser that was used to kill him was handled by Denver Sheriff deputies. There are compelling, unresolved reasons to believe the deputies involved may have tampered with, hidden, or even destroyed the original taser - a key piece of evidence in their and the City’s defense - and we believe that DA McCann has a responsibility and a mandate to reopen the investigation based on the new evidence brought forward by the Booker family.   The new DA, Beth McCann has the power to reopen this criminal case to finally seek answers and closure for Marvin Booker’s family and to definitively learn whether the Sheriff deputies involved attempted to hide the evidence of their wrong doing.  Join us in solidarity with the Booker family by demanding that this case be reopened. Beth McCann: reopen the investigation of the murder of Marvin Booker. Show us that you will not hold law enforcement to a different standard for criminal wrong doing. More Context: On July 10, 2010, Marvin Booker was killed. Known by his community as a street preacher, Marvin was brought to the Denver County Jail where he ended up being physically confronted by police officers before they piled on top of jumped on him, restrained him, beat him, tased him, and killed him. During the investigation of his murder, then District Attorney Mitch Morrissey declined to press charges against the officers involved, however a later ruling in a civil lawsuit determined that there was significant wrongdoing. For over two years, Denver Justice Project has been focusing on the power of the district attorney to increase accountability for law enforcement and combat mass incarceration. Thanks to input from the community, we developed a ten-point platform for what our ideal district attorney would look like to push the 2016 candidates to better-represent the community in their role should they be elected. We have continued to press newly-elected Beth McCann to embody our platform in meetings and in public. One of our platform points was that the new DA establish a Conviction Review Unit to review past convictions of people who have maintained that they are innocent, but also to look at past cases of non-indictments against an officer who used deadly force or caused grievous bodily harm and reopen such cases if necessary. One of the driving forces for why we wanted this of a new DA was Marvin Booker’s murder which was particularly devastating to our community and as time has passed, has revealed serious concerns with the investigatory process that ended in a lack of indictment for police and deputies who have hurt or killed members of our community. As the new documentary Marvin Booker Was Murdered revealed with new video footage that had never before been public, there were major discrepancies in the officers’ testimonies and significant concerns with the investigation, especially with regard to the issue of the taser. According to the documentary, the taser that was entered as evidence into the criminal investigation appears not to be the same taser that was used to kill Marvin Booker. The details of that discrepancy and the family’s new demands can be found in this article by the Susan Greene of Colorado Independent: www.coloradoindependent.com/166041/greene-marvin-booker-taser-excessive-force-denver-jail-evidence What we want from a District Attorney is to be responsive to the community. We want them to be deliberate in seeking answers and justice when our community has been hurt. The DA has the power to go back and reopen such cases as Marvin’s, and we are asking that Beth McCann use that power. In the past, she has claimed that she is reluctant to reopen such cases because she doesn’t want to reopen old wounds, but the reality is that these wounds never fully-healed for the families who lost loved ones. Marvin’s family is still left without answers and is still in pain, and our city is still left suspecting its own law enforcement officers of a cover up. The community deserves to know that their DA will seek justice, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. At the end of the day, Marvin Booker was murdered, and Denver deserves a DA that will hold his murderers accountable. Join us in demanding that District Attorney Beth McCann reopen this case to seek closure for the family, justice for the community, and accountability for law enforcement.