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WARD 1 UPDATE
Hello Neighbors:
Like many of you, I am grieving the senseless death of Renee Good in Minneapolis at the hands of an ICE agent earlier this week. Ms. Good was unarmed and unthreatening, and reportedly just dropped her son off at school. A day later, federal agents shot and injured two people in Portland. In case anyone thought otherwise, let’s be clear that ICE’s actions are a threat to everyone. They are not going after dangerous criminals, as they said they would; they are going after anyone who rubs them the wrong way, and they are interested in boosting the number of arrests, facts be damned.
What happened in Minneapolis and Portland could just as easily have happened here in D.C. In fact, we’ve had at least two incidents of Homeland Security Investigations agents shooting at residents here that easily could have resulted in injury or death.
On Thursday I released a report from the Committee on Public Works & Operations, which I chair, that calls on the Mayor and interim police chief to rescind two orders that allow D.C. police to cooperate with federal law enforcement on immigration. It also recommends that the Council develop legislation to strengthen the laws intended to prohibit that collaboration. (Read in the Washington Post, NBC4, ABC7, and more – see In The News, below).
The report details the testimony and findings from the hearing we held in October on possible human rights violations emanating from D.C. government cooperation with federal law enforcement.
What is most troubling in all of this is the tremendous loss of trust between residents and MPD. It wasn’t inevitable. It could have been prevented. And it will have grave consequences on public safety for all of us, as residents hesitate to call police for themselves or when they fear it might endanger their neighbors. Nobody should be afraid to call the police – and yet, here we are.
I hope that this report will compel the Department to take action to repair that breach. And that we can raise pressure on the Mayor to rescind the orders that make it possible for MPD to continue its cooperation with ICE, HSI, and other federal immigration enforcement. And that the Council will take action to strengthen the Sanctuary Values Act and make this kind of collaboration – clearly against the spirit of the law and the values clearly expressed by our residents – impossible in the future.
You can read the recommendations and download the full report.
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