Speak Out! Defund BPD!
Today @ 2:30p. We don't have time for "coffee with a cop" or more trainings for cops while the Berkeley police are actively criminalizing people simply on the basis of race, mental health disability and homelessness in our city. We need a budget that invests in real community, not badges and guns. Make your voice heard during public comment today!
TODAY, TUESDAY 6/16 at 2:30pm: Let’s keep up the pressure and pack the “room” at the city council’s public hearing on the budget! . Last week the people of Berkeley made it loud and clear that reforms don’t work; we need structural changes now. On Tuesday, so many spoke out against the city officials’ bandaid reforms that the budget hearing had to be pushed a week to 6/16. At Thursday’s “town hall,” the city manager and police chief shut down the public, offering diversity hiring initiatives and more “conversations” as the solution and only answering a handful of the 253 questions submitted ahead of time. . Berkeley PD will only be facing a 4.8% cut while other departments face up to 15% cuts. Let’s flood the public hearing and demand a budget that supports community wellbeing, especially for Black residents in Berkeley! We demand our elected officials divest resources away from policing and reallocate those funds to REAL alternatives: robust mental health services, access to housing, food, education, restorative justice programs, youth services, the list goes ON. We cannot solve the problems inherent to policing by funding the police. . . . #defundthepolice #carenotcops #fuckthepolice #blacklivesmatter #nojusticenopeace
