Content Warning: This email contains descriptions of police violence related to the death of Jayland Walker. If this topic causes you distress, please skip this message. At this time there is not a verified fundraiser in support of his family or their legal bills. If and when a verified fundraiser becomes available, my team and I will share it.

Friends – A few hours ago, Akron Police released the bodycam footage of the murder of Jayland Walker. I do not encourage anyone to watch it.

While details are still emerging, there are a few things we already know.

This began, as so many of these incidents do, under the guise of a routine traffic stop.

The shooting began as Jayland fled on foot, and police reportedly fired up to 90 shots at him – with as many as 60 striking his body according to the autopsy.

The medical examiner has ruled his death a homicide.

There are sickening parallels to another Ohio incident from 10 years ago – the murder of two Black motorists, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, at the hands of officers who fired 137 bullets into their vehicle without provocation.

Police have made several claims about this latest incident, including an allegation that a shot appeared to have been fired from Jayland’s vehicle while they pursued him. While a gun was later found in the car, police confirmed at today’s press conference that Jayland was unarmed at the time officers shot him.

While we wait for the investigation to be completed, we need to be clear: American police have a long record of misrepresenting key facts to hide officer misconduct. Look no further than the cascade of lies still pouring forth from the Uvalde police department in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school.

Official police statements should ALWAYS be treated with skepticism by the press and the public until accompanied by independently verified evidence.

We will wait for the investigation and hope for accountability. But we have to confront the fact that this is bigger than one case, one police department, or one state.

Policing in America is fundamentally corrupt, and state and local authorities have repeatedly failed to provide real oversight, reform, or accountability.

We need federal solutions to this continued, institutional injustice. Right now the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, drafted in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, is sitting in the Senate – collecting dust with piles of critical legislation.

Yet while that bill would be a significant step forward in police accountability by establishing national databases for officer misconduct, in my view and the view of many reform advocates, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

This bill would not end qualified immunity, and provides no framework for redirecting any part of existing police budgets into non-violent, community-based alternative programs that will actually, structurally reduce police violence.

When I serve in Congress, I will fight to end “pretext traffic stops” and push for national standards for police accountability. I will shut down the Pentagon’s pipeline of military equipment to police departments. I will fight to end the racist War on Drugs, federally decriminalize marijuana and expunge all marijuana-related records – including outstanding warrants.

A traffic stop should never be a death sentence. Nothing in the video released by Akron police today justifies 90 bullets fired into a man’s back. Nothing.

There can be no justice without accountability, and no accountability without structural change.

In solidarity,

Jason Call