Friend,
As you’ve probably seen, a video of the police killing of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee captured the nation’s attention this week—and prompted renewed calls to pass legislation to address police violence and accountability.
Tyre, a Black father of a 4-year-old son, was pulled over on January 7th for reckless driving. The stop escalated into a violent confrontation after Memphis PD’s ‘Scorpion Unit’—a specialized police force that patrolled “high crime hotspots”—shouted conflicting orders, dragged Tyre from his car, and beat him for more than three minutes.
In the wake of the video’s release, the community of Memphis has come together to demand accountability. And unlike many other incidents of police violence, the community has been somewhat successful—with all five officers on-the-scene facing second degree murder charges, among others, and the specialized Scorpion Unit permanently disbanded.
But as Tyre’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, said this week, “No mother should go through what I went through the violent way I lost my son."
And we agree: that’s why Ground Game Texas is taking action at the ballot box to improve policing right here in Texas. We’re not waiting for lawmakers to take action—we’re putting it in front of the voters.
This month we turned in more than 35,000 signatures for the San Antonio Justice Charter, a comprehensive public safety initiative that would eliminate dangerous and unnecessary enforcement tactics and hopefully reduce the likelihood of deadly police conduct.
Specifically, this charter initiative would ban no-knock police warrants, end the use of chokeholds, and prioritize citations instead of arrests for nonviolent crimes. It would also decriminalize, or eliminate enforcement of, low-level marijuana possession and enforcement of abortion “crimes,’ which are too often a pretext for over-policing of Black and brown communities.
At Ground Game Texas, we believe that change comes from the ground up, not the top down. We have to demand more from our lawmakers, but if they refuse to act, we must.
If you want to learn more about the fight for police reform and human rights in Texas, check out our partners in Texas at the link below. Together, we can ensure fewer families have to endure what Tyre’s family has.
Thank you,
Ground Game Texas
Ground Game Texas is a project of Register2Vote, a 501(c)(4) organization. Paid for by Register2Vote. Contributions to Register2Vote are not tax deductible.
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