Black Lives Matter Sacramento

I'm going to have to rewind a little before I tell you what happened recently...

Remember back in June of 2019 when we told you about three 13 year old boys walking to McDonalds in the middle of the morning while talking to one of their fathers on speaker phone, getting some positive words for the day, had a gun pulled out on them by Officer Verk with the Sacramento Police Department? They described it as him "having his finger on the trigger while his hands shook." They didn't actually fit the description of the folks Verk was looking for, and this was the first time any of them had been traumatized by police. 

Full Story and Video From June 21, 2019 Here

One of the boys in particular has had to have therapy. It took a long time for him to want to go outside with his friends and just do pre-teen things. He didn't want to walk anywhere, and has slowly had to heal from that...

Well guess what happened...

This piece seeks to deeply examine how much we have normalized the relationship with Black folx and death and yet the beautiful perseverance and creativity of Black folx amidst it all.

The piece is called "The Black boy and his purple jacket"...

Public Statement Regarding Elk Grove Police Department and Officer Misty Johnson

This statement is in response to the traffic stop initiated by Officer Misty Johnson on September 13, 2020, and subsequent actions taken by Elk Grove Police Department.

• We call for the Sacramento City Council to Stand in Solidarity with the Community of Minneapolis, Minnesota and call for an immediate disbanding of the Police
  Department.
• This include reallocating the 10 million in Measure U funds for the police department and allocating all Measure U funds back to the community for real community improvements like those that were outlined in Measure G in which this council failed to support a mere 2.5% reallocation of the city budget to schools and programs that support children but instead remained steadfast in its continued investment in police and the brutality and violence that is enacts on our communities.
• We call for an immediate reallocation of funds from the police department into the communities which have been over policed. These immediate reallocations should follow the 2.5% budget allocation that was recommended in measure G.
• We call for an immediate change to the city charter so that the city manager, an unelected official, is no longer in charge of termination of police officers and that responsibility be aligned with the Sacramento Mayor and Council.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Tanya Faison, Black Lives Sacramento
(916) 581-0061
[email protected]

Press Statement Regarding Faison v. Jones Lawsuit Settlement

Tanya Faison, founder of Black Lives Matter Sacramento made the following statement:

Ahmed Aubrey.   25   2/23/2020 Brunswick, Georgia

Breonna Taylor  26   3/13/2020.   Louisville KY

Jah     14    4/27/2020     Rancho Cordova, Sacramento

Isaiah Swift       23    5/2/2020    Norfolk VA

Dreasjon "Sean" Reed, 21 5/6/2020.    Indianapolis

McHale Rose, 19    5/7/2020.  Indianapolis

Adrian Medearis  5/8/2020

Christian Cooper   57.   5/25/2020  Central Park, NY

George Floyd   5/25/2020   Minneapolis, MN

Tony McDade  5/25/2020 Tallahassee, FL

Sha' Teina Grady 5/26/2020 Michigan (beaten by police)

This is just an informative update on some of the work we are doing, stats we are following, and accountability we are trying to take..

As you know all the cities in California are on lock down. For that reason most govt business is being conducted from cameras in homes. Virtually. 

We decided to look at the agenda of the West Sacramento City Council meeting and it turns out that the May 20, 2020 meeting had an agenda item (#7) that was a report on "21st Century Policing." 

The fact that they have a quarterly report is a good thing. Whats even greater is that the demographics of this council is representative of the demographics of its population. 
We will see how that pans out tho..

Well here is the PDF to the report: https://blob.cityofwestsacramento.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=17615

And here was my emailed public comment: 

Read further for the response...