Press Advisory For Immediate Release
December 17, 2014 Contact: Ashley Franklin 323.867.4734 or Manuel Criollo, 323.243.9304
Fight for the Soul of the Cities
Press Conference
LAUSD Headquarters @ 4 PM
333 North Beaudry Avenue, LA 90017
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Rally and Resist-In at LAUSD Headquarters
#DemilitarizeLAUSD #NoTanksLA #BlackResistanceMatter #Stop1033
The Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities and Community Rights Campaign is organizing a Rally and Resist-In at Los Angeles Unified School District on Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 4 pm. The growing outcry and struggle to bring an end to state sanctioned violence against the Black community is on the rise. An important arena in that battle is the demand to Demilitarize LAUSD – No Tanks in LA. We are calling on the LAUSD and its Los Angeles School Police Department to end the collaboration with the Department of Defense 1033 Programand the militarization of police. We want to end the school year with a strong action to call on the LAUSD to:
· Document and delineate all military weapons and materials purchased and those received from the Department of Defense and other federal programs
· End LASPD and LAUSD participation with the 1033 Program
· Agree that the LASPD as a matter of public policy destroy all weapons, not transfer them to other communities
· Work with us to urge other school boards to do the same
· Work with us to urge the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department to end their participation with the 1033 Program
· Establish a Black and Latino-led Community-Control Board of LA School Police Department
As Black youth in Ferguson and across the country have courageously taken to the streets to demand justice for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and countless others, helping to spark the reconstruction of a new freedom movement, it has reinvigorated a worldwide people’s movement to reject police murder of Black men and women, the criminalization and incarceration of Black and Brown communities and the growing suppression of protest and organizing through the of militarizing local police and counterinsurgency politics.
#Ferguson2LA - Quest for Justice to End Police Violence, Militarism and Racism
In the same week of the shooting of Michael Brown and Ezell Ford, the Community Rights Campaign with the leadership of the LAUSD, unveiled the Equal Protection Plan. This ushered in a new school and police protocol to decriminalize student disciple. After many years of work, the Equal Protection Plan represents an important advance in an avalanche of reactionary violence and criminalization against black and brown communities as evident by the shooting of Michael Brown and Ezell Ford. A few weeks after the slaying of Michael Brown, the Strategy Center sent a delegation to Ferguson to record the voices of the leaders on the frontlines of the Ferguson resistance through our Voices from the Frontlines radio program and we worked with the Organization of Black Struggles and Hands Up United for an entire week to understand and strategize how to end police brutality and violence. Days after we returned from St Louis, we were approached by NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Los Angeles Times about LAUSD’s participation in the 1033 Program and its possession of military war weaponry that included 61 assault rifles, 3 grenade launchers and 1 MRAP vehicle. These are the same weapons used by the Ferguson Police and other St Louis law enforcement agencies against protesters days following the killing of Michael Brown.
The militarization of police comes out of a reactionary politics of counter-insurgency, as our society becomes crueler with constantly shrinking resources and opportunities. This mentality is also reflected in the school to jail track, our student leaders ask is the weaponry for their protection or because they are perceived as a public threat? According to the applications LASPD sent to the state office that releases military weapons under the 1033 program, as reported by the LA Daily News, LASPD’s SWAT team needed the gear to enforce narcotics laws, serve “high-risk” warrants, conduct counter terrorism, and protect students, with no real discussion or approval by the LAUSD. Counter to long history of little to no oversight by the LAUSD Board of the largest school police department in the country; the Strategy Center has called for year for a community control board of the LASPD that would ensure the civil and human rights of Black and Latino students and families, and to guarantee community oversight, accountability and transparency.
Students Organize and Resist – Fight for the Soul of the Cities - We have been building resistance on the ground since early fall 2014. We have had rallies in our communities with the Fight for the Soul of the Cities’ core demand, #NoTanksLA to end the militarization and criminalization of our communities. We have conducted dozen of classroom presentations and have led important political education sessions in our Taking Action forms discussing the links of Black history, police violence and undermining black and brown movements who demand power and respect throughout Ferguson and Los Angeles. As we proudly organized with the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition to successfully pass the ethnic studies graduation requirement in LAUSD in November, we tied the struggle for historical memory of Black and Brown communities with the struggle to end war, militarism and racism in our communities and across the globe. We have collected thousands of petitions urging LAUSD to demilitarize the LASPD. And just last week, we organized a strong response to stop the expansion of police in elementary schools – what can only be called another form of militarism.
Our movement to #DemilitarizeLAUSD had forced LASPD to pack up the MRAP tank
Through our pressure and organizing, LASPD has returned the grenade launchers and have transferred the MRAP tank to the city of Barstow. And just last week, we organized a strong response to stop the expansion of police in elementary schools – what can only be called another form of militarism. President Obama has called for more oversight of military weapons transfer and body cameras – yet the reality is that we need an end to police violence, criminalization and militarism. LAUSD asan institution of learning can provide leadership to reject militarism and police violence, we urge the LAUSD Board to begin the process toend its relationship to the 1033 Program.
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