The community asks for accountability and demand the following: DEMANDS: 1. We must hold both Principal Robert Miller and Superintendent Ventura accountable and demand transparency they must release a statement about the incident with the SRO and not ignore the impact it has caused students, teachers and concerned parents. 2. School must remove School Resource Officer Philip Vavrinec from school grounds. Isaac Middle School must change the culture of how we deal with conflict in Isaac Middle School by adding more counselors to help students on campus. 3. When we say, cultura not cops, we mean more ethnic studies programs, more teachers and counselors that have critical consciousness and the cultural competency training to empower and support students in order to create a well rounded learning environment. 4. We want an independent investigation of civil rights abuses at Isaac Middle School by School Resource Officers.

On Monday July 22nd, ICE agents attempted to detain a father and son in Hermitage. ICE agents called Metro Nashville Police Department and requested assistance in detaining the family, and Nashville Police Officers. The police officers stood by ICE for several hours as the father and son refused to exit the van. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: https://www.facebook.com/mixnashville/videos/2105602209734333/ At one point ICE agents intimidated the father and son by stating that if they didn’t exit the vehicle- they would have Nashville police officers arrest him, saying, “We’ll just call the cops and they’ll arrest you, and then when they’re done with you in the jail, then we’ll get you”, and threatening to come back for his wife. You can watch this video that was recorded by the courageous dad while he was surrounded by ICE. We demand an investigation of Metro Nashville Police Department's decision to accompany ICE. After Monday’s thwarted ICE arrest, Metro Nashville Police Department, along with Mayor Briley, released a statement saying the presence of Metro Police served as crowd control and as a “peacemaker”. We know from video accounts and statements of our responders that MNPD showed up when ICE called them to assist with the arrest, long before there was a “crowd”. Additionally, MNPD repeatedly and falsely informed responding friends and neighbors that ICE had the correct warrant, when they did not. The actions by Metro Nashville police officers go against MNPD stated policy, which indicates the department does not actively collaborate with ICE. We demand an audit of MNPD practices that waste Metro Government resources by deploying public servants in acts of terror against the communities and neighborhoods they serve. We also are calling on Metro Nashville Council Members to vigorously pursue policy changes that will prevent further cooperation between MNPD and ICE that puts Nashville families at risk. It does not serve the safety of our neighborhoods for our local law enforcement resources and personnel to be deployed in support of a deportation campaign against immigrant members of Nashville’s communities. Other organizations signing on to the effort include: Community Oversight Now Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights Mijente National Workers Dignity Mijente Louisville Siembra North Carolina Congress of Day Laborers, Showing Up for Racial Justice - Nashville No Exceptions Prison Collective Nashville Indivisible Middle Tennessee Indivisible

Donald Trump just announced executive action that threatens any city that seeks to protect immigrant residents from his deportation machine. What he’s trying to do is roll back the leaps forward we’ve made in recent years but we won’t let him. In 2017, it’s the efforts to defend Black lives and protect migrant rights that make our cities safer, not Trump’s extra enforcement promises. To keep us safe, we need to evolve our local policies to make our cities real sanctuaries for all residents, not cancel them because of the illegitimate President's latest actions. That means a commitment to separating police from federal immigration enforcement AND addressing the policing that funnels Black and other residents to jail and places criminal charges on immigrant residents, making them a target for ICE agents. Tell our mayor and city council to stand up to Trump and take action that doesn't just symbolically defend immigrants, but transforms our city's policies to stop targeting us for imprisonment, risk of removal, and state violence at the hands of police and aggressive immigration agents. The illegitimate President's threats should be cause to embolden our city leaders, not an excuse to abandon our potential progress.

Last spring, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) took comments from the public on its proposed Criminal Enterprise Database (CED), beginning on April 11 through May 11, 2019. The comments obtained through the use of the Freedom of Information Act show major discontent with CPD’s plan to implement a new gang database. Alternatively, an overwhelming number of suggestions point to the need for solutions that center investment in public education and mental health resources instead of more systems of biased surveillance and criminalization. According to a memo prepared by the campaign to Erase the Gang Database, approximately 86% of the people who submitted comments opposed the creation of any database, including the Criminal Enterprise Database. A remaining 11% of the comments opposed the CED, but appeared open to the creation of a different database and 3% supported the CED as proposed by the law enforcement agency last year. Last spring the Chicago Office of Inspector General published a partial audit of the Chicago Gang Database, confirming the information that community organizations have been highlighting for years: That it mostly targets Black and Latinx people (at 95% of the list), that it shares information with over 500 agencies, and that instead of being a tool to make communities safer, it is used to criminalize, intimidate, and denigrate Chicagoans. In response, the Chicago Police Department stated that they will only comply with a partial list of the recommendations, by creating a new gang database that is supposed to follow the guidelines but ignoring any grievances of people for the current gang database, with plans of continuing to share the inaccurate data with over 500 agencies indefinitely. Read the public comments here: http://bit.ly/CEDPublicComments Read memo here: http://bit.ly/MemoCEDPublic Find full OIG report here in English and Spanish: https://igchicago.org/2019/04/11/review-of-the-chicago-police-departments-gang-database/

Luis has lived in East Austin since he was a baby; English is his first language. After Luis’s abusive father left the family, Luis’s mother raised him and his siblings as a single-mother. Luis struggled as a teenager, but after meeting his wife Ana Marie, he fell in love and became a father to her two little girls. They built a stable and loving home, and in 2017, Luis was overjoyed to learn that his wife was pregnant and their family would grow. Last year ICE began monitoring Luis on social media and asked the Austin Police Department for help surveilling him without a warrant. Instead of following their own protocols as a Freedom City, the Austin Police Department decided to proactively collaborate with ICE and used a mental health call at a wrong address in the neighborhood to get information on Luis and his family. APD’s unethical behavior helped ICE arrest Luis and he now faces prosecution for “illegal reentry.” If found guilty, Luis could face up to 20 years in prison. Luis is part of a growing trend. Currently, more than 63% of all federal prosecutions are for immigration related charges. Many immigrants facing prosecution feel like they have no support or options, so they plead guilty. But Luis has said “I was unjustly arrested in front of my 8-month pregnant wife. She had a seizure as I was being taken, and I haven’t met my son. I want people to know what APD is doing and how they are helping ICE separate families. I am fighting because I want nothing more than to go to my home in East Austin and hold my wife and son.” Please stand with him so that he knows he is not alone. Luis is a part of our community; he should be allowed to stay in the United States to meet his son and help raise him. Sign here to demand Assistant US Attorney Grant Sparks drop all charges against him, and call on the Austin Police Department to demand they stop doing ICE’s dirty work.

Last week members of the coalition to Erase the Cook County Gang Database known as RGID (Regional Gang Intelligence Database) learned of the Sheriff's Office plans to destroy the database before the Cook County Board of Commissioners holds a mandatory public hearing required by the Ordinance approved last month. This expedited approval and comments by the Sheriff's Office should raise red flags to anyone that believes in transparency and processes of accountability of law enforcement. Just because the RGID is destroyed doesn’t mean the harm stops to exist and the Sheriff’s department should follow the proper steps to dismantle the database. For criminalized communities, such as in the case of people included in RGID without due process, having knowledge of which agencies accessed their information can be instrumental to defend their rights in front of agencies such as ICE, FBI, DHS, and State’s Attorney among others. Check out the new report on the Regional Gang Intelligence Database (LINK). Sign and share the petition today.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, the Council narrowly approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreeing to a pay increase for officers in the Santa Ana Police Department amounting to more than $25 million over the course of three years. At that meeting, council members were implored by members of the community to reject this MOU given uncertainty over Santa Ana’s current financial health; however, the majority of the Council disregarded the public’s input and moved forward with approving the MOU. As justification for approving this agreement, members of the Council majority offered explanations that ranged from incomprehensible to downright untruthful. Mayor Pulido was characteristically dismissive of members of the public and his colleagues. Councilmember Sarmiento spoke many words without making a cogent point or offering an explanation for why he felt that such a generous pay increase is warranted at this time or a legitimate use of Measure X revenue. Councilmember Solorio assured residents that these raises will not leverage Measure X tax revenue, despite the fact that the Staff Report accompanying the agenda item specifically identified this revenue as a source of funding. And Councilmember Penaloza was primarily concerned with where Santa Ana Police Department salaries will fall when ranked against other municipalities after the pay increase, indicating he is comfortable with the mark of distinction for our police department being how highly officers are paid rather than how well they serve our community. Given the lack of thoughtful discussion and public debate on this issue, residents of Santa Ana are rightfully displeased with the outcome of your decision to approve this MOU. We are also concerned that this decision was made without the benefit of an accurate understanding of our city’s current fiscal situation. The fact that the Council recently dismissed our City Manager, whose responsibility it was to provide an objective and fact-based assessment of our finances to enable the Council to make prudent and sustainable fiscal decisions, further erodes the public’s confidence that this MOU was approved based on a comprehensive understanding of its short- and long-term impacts to Santa Ana’s finances. As Santa Ana’s elected officials, they have an obligation to act in a manner that is aligned with the needs and values of the community they serve. Execution of the MOU to increase officer pay was not consistent with their obligations to our community, but they have an opportunity to make that right. For the sake of Santa Ana’s financial health and the well-being of its residents,they should move to restore the public’s trust by rescinding the current MOU and going back to the drawing board.

Mr. Washington claimed in his filing that the corrections agency was actively refusing to give him medication for his medical conditions, including “diabetes, liver conditions, and blood pressure issues. Six weeks after he filed a court document claiming that he was “being killed” due to inadequate medical care he died of health complications. Mistreatment inside Arizona prisons must not be ignored our people are suffering inside these cages. We must denounce this treatment and demand an independent investigation into Mr. Washington’s death and medical care inside the Department of Corrections. “Prisons don't disappear problems they disappear people.” - Angela Davis

In December of 2018, Commissioner Alma Anaya introduced an ordinance to protect the rights of Cook County residents by prohibiting the use of the county's gang database until the completion of the Inspector General's investigation into the use and impact of the database. In January, the Cook County Sheriff's office announced it decommissioned the Regional Gang Intelligence Database (RGID) but failed to answer questions of how the information was handled since the inception of the database. If passed, ordinance #19-0687 would: (a) Prohibit the Sheriff from recommissioning RGID (b) Stop the Sheriff's office from adding new information to RGID (c) Stop the office of the Sheriff from sharing information previously kept in the RGID system (d) Set up public hearings to review how RGID has been used in the past In Cook County, the sheriff's department has managed this database of at least 25,000 people since the early 2000s. According to a ProPublica investigation, the list includes “hundreds whose gangs aren’t known and hundreds who are dead.” Authorities from 371 different agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have access to the data, and could potentially use it to target individuals. The inclusion of a person's name on the database can adversely affect employment, housing, bail/bond and parole decisions, and lead to false arrest, deportation, citizenship, and other life devastating consequences. Individuals are never notified when their names have been placed in the database and therefore never have an opportunity to challenge the charges or provide evidence in their defense. The lack of notification, judicial process, or opportunity for self-defense and review, create an environment ripe for civil rights violations and abuse of power. Join us in asking the Cook County Board of Commissioners to hold Tom Dart, Cook County Sheriff, accountable by passing Ordinance #19-0687 at the next Criminal Justice committee meeting on February 20, 2019. Read the Ordinance #19-0687 here: https://cook-county.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3775860&GUID=49C64AF7-4FDB-4F89-B53F-80214E7E68C7&Options=&Search=&FullText=1

Santa Ana Police Chief, David Valentin requested the Santa Ana City Council to give the Police Department permission to destroy eight boxes of police records related to officers’ use of force, in-custody injuries, and employee misconduct. This request to the Council comes in response to a new state law that gives the public access to police records after years of secrecy. Chief Valentin made this request at the January 15th city council meeting before it was pulled from the meeting’s agenda. Based on other departments’ attempts to destroy their records across the state, we can expect the issue to return before the city council. Santa Ana residents have a right to know the full scope of police misconduct within their communities. Destroying these records decreases transparency, undermines accountability of local government, and harms public safety. We have the fundamental right to know how police use -- and abuse -- their powers. Join us in demanding that the City Council uphold accountability and transparency, by voting to preserve police misconduct and brutality records!

Silvia retweeted a headline that said, ‘Doing nothing is not acceptable’. She has continued to be silent on the murder of Antonio Arce. Police continue to murder us, just within the first 16 days of 2019, there have been four shootings involving law-enforcement officers in Maricopa County. In each case, the person shot by an officer was a teenager. We can not allow for more police to continue to murder and criminalize our communities. We must start by fighting for justice for Antonio Arce and make sure no more deaths happen at the violent hands of Police. "If they want to tarnish my son, they are wrong. Apart from the fact that they killed him, they want to destroy him. No. I won't allow it; I want justice," the teen's mother, Sandra Gonzalez

On June 8, 2018 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the transfer of approximately 1,600 people detained under their custody in immigrant detention centers to federal prisons operated by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). These transfers affected prisons in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Texas with ICE officials stating that the transfers were to last up to 120 days. These transfers effectively served as a way for ICE to increase its detention capacity by close to 4% overnight without any oversight or prior notice. In doing this, ICE circumvented the existing channels for detention expansion, instead making use of another agency’s resources to carry out its work. These massive transfers have been disastrous for those detained as these BOP facilities have provided them with even less access to legal representation and pastoral care and have not failed to ensure those detained have communication with their loved ones. At the same time, the transfers have also signaled worsening conditions for workers inside the prisons which has had an impact on those detained as well. Given the hiring freeze within the Department of Justice (which oversees BOP), these facilities have turned to the practice of ‘augmentation’, forcing civilian prison workers (teachers, nurses, cooks, etc.) to take on the duties of guards. The combination of a lack of proper staffing and the abusive conditions detained immigrants are subjected to have resulted in cases like Victorville, where an outbreak of chickenpox and scabies took place that was exacerbated by the lack of proper medical staff to address the issues. Along with this, there are reports of Sikh men being held at the Sheridan Prison, having their turbans confiscated and being forced to purchase beanies as a replacement for their religious garb. These two salient examples are just some of many instances that prove that these overnight transfers have only resulted in those detained being subjected to mounting human rights abuses as BOP takes on the work and resulting liability from performing ICE’s work for them.