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

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has begun a “public” comment process for their new body worn camera policy. But, don’t be fooled, this is a false process for a false solution. The NYPD is buying 1,000 body-worn cameras for officers to wear across the city. They have opened up a public comment period that is supposed to guide how the NYPD uses these cameras. But this public comment process doesn’t give us, the public, any real authority to shape how the NYPD uses body-worn cameras. The Policing Project at New York University will review the public comments and prepare an internal report that summarizes them. There is no oversight by elected officials or New York residents. All the NYPD has to do is release a public response explaining if they adjusted their policy based on input -- That’s it! This is a false process. The debate over police body worn cameras entered the national dialogue after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The President and members of Congress offered cameras as a solution to increase police accountability. As a result, federal, state, and local dollars have been spent to use them in our communities. But, as the case of Eric Garner in New York proved, cameras do not stop police violence against black communities. In fact, these devices and other police technologies only increase the potential for racial profiling and surveillance. Remember, body worn cameras are facing us, not the police. To make our communities safer, we cannot offer false solutions to a real problem. If the NYPD was invested in making communities safer, it would advocate for real community solutions such as job programs, affordable housing, and education. Not money going toward cameras that make the problem worse. In Solidarity, Chinyere and the rest of Team #MediaJustice

UNCW students are having their first amendment rights violated by campus police officers that are unable to follow their own policies. The Black Lives Matter campaign was erased from our campus by officers who even our university Public Relations office refers to as "overzealous". There haven't been any consequences for the officer, and if our police aren't held responsible for this overstepping of boundaries, the university will continue policing the voice and opinions of its students.