Friends,

We at LAANE are devastated by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, and by the murders of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee in Lousiville, Kentucky. All three were Black Americans murdered by the police who are sworn to protect them. More than one thousand people are killed by police every year in America; these victims are disproportionately Black, Brown, and indigenous. Few police officers are ever charged—let alone convicted—for these crimes.

We know that Black lives matter, and we stand unequivocally with our comrades fighting for the liberation of Black people here and everywhere. 

While the National Guard’s presence––with their fatigues, assault weapons, and humvees––is a striking image, Los Angeles needs no reminder that Black and Brown communities in our city have been over-policed for years.

With little to no notice, cities throughout the county have been instituting progressively earlier curfews. When combined with the decision to shut down transit this past weekend, Angelenos, including essential workers, were stranded and left vulnerable to arrest. 

We are proud to stand with our allies at Community Coalition, LA Students Deserve, Black Lives Matter LA, and many others in demanding our city leaders adopt the People’s Budget. This is one bold and necessary step in a series of many we need to dismantle the racist systems endangering the lives of Black and Brown Angelenos. 

We need housing, healthcare, education, good jobs, healthy food, small business resources and free public transit. We do not need more police. 

Writing the name of a murdered man on a wall is not “violence.” Violence is beating the protester who wrote that name with a club. The “looting” that plagues this country is the theft of workers’ wages, the extraction of wealth from Black and Brown communities, and the public funds being funneled into major corporations instead of back into the hands of the people.