Deputy Sheriff Tu Tran fatally shot Joshua Johnson while serving a warrant to someone else. We, the signers of this petition, demand that the Houston Sheriff's Office permanently and immediately terminate Deputy Sheriff Tu Tran employment with the Houston Sheriff's Department, release all of the facts and information around the death of Joshua Johnson, and release Tu Trans personnel record. On April 22nd, 2020 Joshua Johnson was killed by Harris County Deputy Sheriff Tu Tran who was on a stake out looking for a capital murder suspect. Joshua was house sitting for a neighbor around 6:00 when he noticed a car near the light pole beside his neighbors house. Joshua approached an unmarked car where the Deputy Sheriff Tu Tran sat in plain clothes. J. When recalling the April 22nd shooting Joshua's father said “I saw this figure of a body on the ground, wrapped in a white sheet,” “I said, ‘That’s my son.’” Johnson laid under that sheet for at least five more hours, he said. These parents and the members of this community deserve justice.The sheriffs department and the deputy sheriff have lied about the events that happened that night and the facts of this case. Joshua's parents simply want answers and have not been able to get them from the sheriff's office. While sitting down with Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Joshua's parents asked for Tran’s records but have not gained access to them. Reports show Tran killed another suspect back in 2015 and a grand jury chose not to indict him then. We want to ensure that Tran is not let off the hook for taking yet another life. We know that white supremacy and anti-blackness are ingrained in every level of society, and we must hold the enablers who allow the devaluing of Black lives accountable for their actions. We’re asking Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to take the following actions, to ensure that our voices are heard and that justice is won. Fire Harris County Deputy Sheriff Tu Tran, release all of the facts and information around the death of Joshua Johnson, and to make Tu Trans personnel record public.

This petition is inspired by the People's budget of LA but it needs to be enacted in Tampa. LA People's Budget History: For five years now, Los Angeles activists have been fighting to adopt a city budget that will provide care and resources for the people. And for just as long, Mayor Garcetti has increased the budget for LAPD, sacrificing funding for vital programs that actually create safe communities. With the coronavirus pandemic’s outsized impact on Black people, and the recent uprisings that echo demands to #DefundThePolice across the country, it has become nothing less than imperative that the City of Los Angeles decrease funding for police and increase investment in services that provide for our people: housing, mental health care, rent suspension and cancellation, funding for youth programs, and investments that directly benefit Black communities. As we experience the Covid-19 pandemic, Mass Unemployment, Black Lives Matter uprisings, and the upcoming eviction crisis we need to call for our city to re-invest in our communities. 37% of Tampa's 2020 General Fund Budget is spent on the Tampa Police Department. The city of Tampa spends 162,695,004 on its Police Department. We Demand that they reallocate this budget with the actual needs of citizens in mind. Under Chief Brian Dugan and previous police chief and current mayor Jane Castor's leadership there has been a 24% increase in use of force and a 223% increase in chemical agents like tear gas and pepper spray. This budget needs to be reallocated to support our community in crisis. We also call on Mayor Jane Castor to Fire Chief Brian Dugan for his complete lack of transparency surrounding less than lethal force and chemical warfare used on peaceful protestors. #JusticeForJonasJoseph #JusticeforJosiah #BlackLivesMatter

On July 20th, 2020, Bills A4369 & A4370 were reviewed by the NJ Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee at a "PUBLIC" hearing, not allowing individuals to provide testimony and not allowing people who had vested interest in these bills attend the hearing. The people of the Public, wanting to attend or testify at the hearing, had to enter their appearance 3 days prior to the hearing. The committee posted notice the morning of the hearing 7/20/20. The Assembly Law & Public Safety committee failed to properly notify the public in fair and timely way, as the Committees permit for all public hearings on Bills. As such, the Committee reported their biased decision, to pass the Bills A4369 & A4370, with amendments, agreed on before the hearing, referring them for second reading by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The amendments made and approved by the committee at the 7/20/20's hearing, abandon the need to review the unfair sentences given to offenders convicted of the egregious "Leader of a Drug Trafficking Network, 1st Degree" charge. A charge the NJ Police and Prosecutors abuse, at their discretion, to charge defendants in cases of their choosing, to steal favorably desired convictions for themselves. The State uses the statute interchangeably with the Conspiracy to Distribute, Manufacture, Possess CDS statutes, as both statute elements to prove are reasonably the same. PLEASE REFER TO LINK BELOW TO READ ABOUT CASES , THAT BOTH STATUTES ARE USED (You will find NJ Police Operations that show Defendants' roles of a Leader involving their criminal enterprise, possessing all leader characteristics, charged with 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree Distribution or Conspiracy of Distribution of Narcotics only) HIGHLIGHTING NEW JERSEY'S UTILIZATION OF THE PICK & CHOOSE TACTICS FOR LEADER OF DRUG TRAFFICKING NETWORK CHARGING OF DEFENDANTS. https://www.nj.gov/oag/dcj/pdfs/2017_DCJ_Annual_Report.pdf Under the statute, a drug-trafficking network need not have any specific configuration or chain of command. Rather, it is to be considered as an organization of persons who are collectively engaged in drug activities. A person is guilty for the conspiracy of drug activities with another person/persons if, purpose of promoting or facilitating its commission, agrees with, such other person/persons, that they, or one or more of them, will engage in conduct, constituting the crime or attempt to solicit to commit the crime; or Agrees to aid other person or persons in the planning or commission of the crime or of an attempt or solicitation, to commit the crime. A conspiracy to commit the crime of Distribution of Narcotics is a crime in itself separate and distinct. THESE STATUTES ARE SO IDENTICAL IN NATURE THAT THE PROSECUTION USES THEM INTERCHANGEABLY FOR THE SAME CRIME ACTS COMMITTED, COMMITTED BY DIFFERENT OFFENDERS. HOW IS THIS A FAIR SENTENCING MODEL? The Leader of a Drug Trafficking Network statute is still the only statute that prescribes a mandatory minimum sentence for a nonviolent drug charge, concerted by NJ's destructive and racially disparaged, Attorney General's Statewide Narcotics Action Plan of 1993. New Jersey in 2020, still remains at the national forefront in drug enforcement, having the highest incarceration rate of black people in the nation, while having the largest prison population in the world. To enforce NJ law with this same approach, violates the constitutional rights of tens of thousands of African Americans and slighted the due process owed to all citizens, by the NJ Justice System. IN 2007, NJ STATE POLICE DETECTIVE FREDRICK HUNTER AND DAG RUSSELL CURLEY CHARGED MY SONS' FATHER, Gary Maddox, WITH LEADER OF A DRUG TRAFFICKING NETWORK. THEY OFFERED HIM A PLEA OF 36 YEARS w 18 YEARS PAROLE ELIGIBILITY. A very long time for someone who was selling drugs for himself. Not in a team organized and financed by him, according to the Detective and DAG's imagination. Gary plead not guilty taking his chances of going to Trial. Consequentially, Det. Hunter and DAG Curley created the narrative of him as the organizer of his brothers' and nephew's drug dealing that benefited themselves solely, not Gary. They did violate the statute of the Conspiracy and the Distribution of Narcotics individually. They talked to one another and hung out often as young guys do, with locker room talk. The State used their close bond to portray a conspiracy of a drug enterprise and Gary the leader of it. He wasn't even in the possession of any drugs, money, etc. when he was arrested. Realistically he was a crap talking, small time dealer, who thought he was lucky when States's CI aggressively requested large quantities of narcotics. He is now serving LIFE w 30 year parole qualifier, being convicted of "Leader of Drug Trafficking Network". Never No Guns, No Weapons, No Violence. He's served almost 14 years now and has seen rapists, murderers, pedophiles and violent individuals come in after him and leave decades before he can leave due to the disproportionate sentencing supported by the State of New Jersey. The NJ State Legislature is trying to get away with this unfair sentencing, by leaving the "Leader of a Drug Trafficking Network" charge out of Bills A4369 & A4370. Prosecutors violate the Due Process Clause and their ethical responsibilities when they present an inconsistent factual theory for different cases with the exact same act being committed. Purporting to be, nothing more than the Legislature's intent in creating certain crimes and prescribing the penalties therefor, an identification of the targets at which unfair sentencing is aimed. The integrity of the judicial system commands that citizens can rest assure that prosecutors are seeking truth and justice; and that when they find truth and justice they cannot seek a different truth and a different justice from the first.

The City Council seeks police reform of hiring, firing, and discipline of officers, as well as, the civilian complaint review practices in the Springfield MA Police Department. We want the Mayor to follow the law he is breaking and implement the Citizens Police Commission.

Heads up - it just became a lot, lot harder to find out if the police officers in your neighborhood are brutalizing Black and Brown communities. When Jim Kenney was elected mayor, he recognized the lack of trust between communities and their police, in a city with massive over-policing (1) and prosecution of Black and Brown people. So in 2017, he followed the lead of other major cities like Chicago (2) and New York, and signed an executive order mandating that data on police complaints would be published online every month - instead of just available to see in person at the Internal Affairs Bureau of the police department. But news outlet Billy Penn is reporting (3) that the Mayor has removed “grim or embarrassing” reports from the database, and that the database will now strip all identifying information about the offending police from the records, making it all but impossible for neighbors to know what cops are acting out - and for watchdogs and journalists to tell the story of police brutality in Philadelphia. Billy Penn reporters Ryan Briggs and Max Marin provided a harrowing example of the differences between the reports after their whitewashing - a Black man run off his bicycle by plainclothes cops in an unmarked car, then handcuffed and detained for hours before receiving medical treatment. See if you can spot the differences: "The complainant, TW, 36/B/M, states that he was physically abused by Officers W and G, 17th District. According to the complainant, on 5-24-15, at 10:10 PM, he was riding his bicycle near 20th & Wharton Streets when someone called to him from a car. He continued riding his bicycle and was struck him from behind by the vehicle. The complainant was knocked from the bicycle to the ground. He was then handcuffed and searched by the occupants of the vehicle before being transported to the hospital for treatment by two uniformed officers. The complainant maintains he did not know the operators of the vehicle that knocked him from his bicycle were plainclothes officers. He maintains they did not identify themselves to him as police officers, nor was he arrested or charged with a crime in connection with this incident." But after the whitewashing, the complaint looks like this: According to the complainant, on 5-24-15 at 10:10pm, they were physically abused by officers assigned to the 17th District. Summary reports of alleged police abuse in Chicago (4) are far more detailed than either style of report we have in Philly, with reports sorted into categories for analysis by watchdogs, press, and the public. But in Kenney’s new version of summary reports for Philly, we don’t have anything: the initials of the officers, the race of the person the police allegedly knocked off his bike, or any details of the brutal story that lets us even try to hold police accountable. In a city where at least 300 police officers were shown to be putting racist, violent, and homophobic content onto their personal social media feeds (5), we need more public accountability for police and their behavior to Black, Brown, queer, immigrant, and poor people, not less. Sign this petition to Mayor Kenney: move right now to restore all the data to the police accountability database. For more information: (1) “In racially diverse 14th District, Philly police target black drivers 3 times more than whites, analysis shows,” By Bobby Allyn and Maura Ewing, January 11, 2019, WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/in-racially-diverse-14th-district-philly-police-target-black-drivers-3-times-more-than-whites-analysis-shows/ (2) Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), City of Chicago: Publications. https://www.chicagocopa.org/news-publications/publications/ (3) "After promising increased transparency, Philadelphia is redacting police complaint records." Max Marin and Ryan Briggs, July 26th, 2019, Billy Penn. https://billypenn.com/2019/07/26/after-promising-increased-transparency-philadelphia-is-redacting-police-complaint-records/ (4) COPA: http://copadev.wpengine.com/investigations/how-to-read-a-case-summary-report/, https://www.chicagocopa.org/news-publications/publications/summary-reports/2019-summary-reports/ (5) "13 Philadelphia Officers to Be Fired Over Racist, Violent Facebook Posts," by Alicia Victoria Lozano, July 18th, 2019, NBC 10. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Police-Officers-Facebook-Posts-512891921.html

Our hearts are heavy. We feel the pain of insult from our own President. In the interest of all our moral and emotional health, we ask you to reserve Presidents’ Day 2018, Monday, February 19, as a National Day of Mourning. We need one another. We need people who profess no particular faith in addition to religious community leaders. They may want to call attention to our psychic need to embrace our sorrow in your services on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Let’s all find time on that Monday to connect with people of all backgrounds, and including the most vulnerable, like Salvadorans and Dreamers, but not only them, because we are all hurting. You may want to share messages that inspire you on social media platforms. Perhaps even more powerful will be inviting people into your home, or creating larger assemblies for the purpose of lament. Let’s all pause at 2PM EST/11AM PST for a collective moment of silence.

On Saturday, August 12th, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, communities and the University of Virginia campus, rallying around a statue of the Confederacy and carrying torches evoking a history of violent racial terrorism. The next day in Charlottesville they killed in the name of their white supremacist symbols. Protesters were rammed by a car killing someone in a terrorist attack. These symbols were not chosen randomly. Confederate monuments have been erected and remain as a direct rebuke to the recognition of the full humanity of Black people. Confederate monuments were built and given places of honor in public space as gains in this recognition have been made and it is the commitment to the reversal of this recognition of humanity that draws white nationalists to these symbols. These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these statues altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point. Confederate statues and named institutions are more than mere symbols of a heritage but instead, they are an assertion of the continued imposition of white supremacy and its current political power. Terrorists in Charlottesville understood this and were willing to kill in the name of this, we must be determined to persist in the face of this white supremacist terror. Removing all Confederate statues would be one step among many in sending the message that we are no longer honoring white supremacy at a societal level. We've already many communities take the step to address these monuments in cities like Tampa and New Orleans. Join with me today and pledge to work to remove all Confederate statues or names from our community.

On Saturday, August 12th, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, communities and the University of Virginia campus, rallying around a statue of the Confederacy and carrying torches evoking a history of violent racial terrorism. The next day in Charlottesville they killed in the name of their white supremacist symbols. Protesters were rammed by a car killing someone in a terrorist attack. These symbols were not chosen randomly. Confederate monuments have been erected and remain as a direct rebuke to the recognition of the full humanity of Black people. Confederate monuments were built and given places of honor in public space as gains in this recognition have been made and it is the commitment to the reversal of this recognition of humanity that draws white nationalists to these symbols. These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these statues altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point. Confederate statues and named institutions are more than mere symbols of a heritage but instead, they are an assertion of the continued imposition of white supremacy and its current political power. Terrorists in Charlottesville understood this and were willing to kill in the name of this, we must be determined to persist in the face of this white supremacist terror. Removing all Confederate statues would be one step among many in sending the message that we are no longer honoring white supremacy at a societal level. We've already many communities take the step to address these monuments in cities like Tampa and New Orleans. Join with me today and pledge to work to remove all Confederate statues or names from our community.