Dear Friend,

The deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Tony McDade at the hands of police officers are among the most recent examples of the ongoing violence that Black and Brown people often experience interacting with law enforcement nationwide.

The protests that are taking place from coast to coast are calling for systemic change to policing throughout the United States.  We need to join the call of Black leaders and communities for an end to abusive policing and a shift of federal funding to support communities instead of policing.

The US government has increasingly provided funding and military equipment to police forces across the country.  The results of militarized policing for people of color is devastating.

At the same time, our legal system fails to hold police officers accountable when they murder, harm, or harass people of color, even when a clear act of murder is caught on camera.  The qualified immunity doctrine, enshrined in US law, makes it almost impossible to successfully prosecute these officers.

We need to create a country where all people are valued equally and are safe.  However, Black Americans are not safe in our communities when the police, the very people who are supposed to provide protection, regularly engage in violence towards them.

Join us and our allies in calling on Congress to end federal government support for militarized policing, shift money spent on policing to communities, and end legal loopholes that keep violent cops in police forces and shielded from prosecution.