{"id":3540,"date":"2014-11-24T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=3540"},"modified":"2014-12-16T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T21:46:21","slug":"dont-shoot-makes-demands-in-response-to-grand-jury-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/dont-shoot-makes-demands-in-response-to-grand-jury-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Shoot makes demands in response to Grand Jury announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diverse local coalition redoubles efforts for justice and accountability<\/h3>\n

For Immediate Release \u2013 November 24, 2014
\nContact: Deborah Jacobs, 973-432-6868<\/p>\n

St. Louis, MO \u2013 Don\u2019t Shoot, a coalition of approximately 50 local organizations formed in the\u00a0wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown, renewed its call for police accountability and\u00a0oversight following the Grand Jury\u2019s decision not to hold Officer Wilson criminally responsible\u00a0for killing Brown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will redouble our efforts to secure justice for Michael Brown and demand police and criminal justice system reforms across the board,\u201d said Michael T. McPhearson, co-chair of the\u00a0Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition and executive director for Veterans For Peace. \u201cWe learned a long time\u00a0ago that police are not held accountable for killing people and especially not black and brown\u00a0people. Instead, law enforcement and the judicial system have been used most aggressively and\u00a0unfairly against us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition calls for:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A thorough Federal investigation of possible criminal violations by Officer Wilson.<\/li>\n
  2. Amnesty for all those engaging in protest activity including dismissal of all state, county and municipal charges against individuals participating in civil disobedience since the August 9, 2014 shooting.<\/li>\n
  3. Police practices and criminal justice reforms that address systemic and prolific racial bias\u00a0in policing.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Justice for Michael Brown remains a critical concern for Don\u2019t Shoot. Now that Missouri\u2019s Grand Jury has declined to file any changes against Officer Wilson, Don\u2019t Shoot looks to the\u00a0Federal government to continue its investigations into the shooting and into the Ferguson Police\u00a0Department. Don\u2019t Shoot urges the Department of Justice expend every possible resource to\u00a0realize a fair and just outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cDon\u2019t Shoot also seeks amnesty for the protestors arrested as a result of engaging in civil disobedience,\u201d said Montague Simmons of the Organization for Black Struggle. \u201cWe ask all involved government agencies to drop these charges. How can you prosecute people for taking\u00a0action to change a guilty system?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Don\u2019t Shoot\u2019s vision for police practices is based on the concept that the role of police is to defend the safety and constitutional rights of the citizens they serve, and in which the first priority is preservation of life.\u201cPolicing priorities should reflect community priorities. We need to shift the fundamental power\u00a0dynamic between the broader community and those it assigns to protect them and keep the\u00a0peace.\u201d said Don\u2019t Shoot member John Chasnoff. Don\u2019t Shoot also wants to see police agencies\u00a0engage the best and most progressive practices and meet the highest standards for\u00a0professionalism in the field.<\/span><\/p>\n

    To achieve this vision, Don\u2019t Shoot has developed a significant agenda of long-term reforms\u00a0needed at the municipal, county, state and federal levels (in part outlined in Don\u2019t Shoot\u2019s\u00a0October 22, 2014 letter to the Department of Justice). Its immediate priorities for reform include:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Establishment of an independent county-wide Citizen Review Board to review serious complaints of police misconduct, make policy recommendations and report on the activities of departments. For such an entity to be effective, it must independently commissioned and empowered with adequate funding, subpoena power and access to Internal Affairs files.<\/li>\n
    • Strengthening Missouri\u2019s racial profiling bill to include repercussions for departments that have demonstrated patterns of racial profiling or failed to comply with the law.<\/li>\n
    • Expanding Missouri\u2019s training requirements for officers to include mandatory in-service\u00a0training on topics such as: interacting with people with mental illnesses, use of force,\u00a0responding to sexual assault, unarmed combat, conflict resolution, anti-racism and other\u00a0critical issues.<\/li>\n
    • Revision of Missouri law to allow individuals with prior felony convictions to serve on juries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      \u201cWe will not allow the Grand Jury\u2019s decision to set us back,\u201d said Denise Lieberman, Don\u2019t Shoot co-chair and Senior Attorney with Advancement Project, which on Saturday filed a legal\u00a0demand letter on behalf of coalition partners promising to protect the constitutional rights of\u00a0demonstrators in the wake of the decision. \u201cWe view this as a beginning, not an end. We look\u00a0forward to working with people from all concerned communities to bring a new era of change\u00a0and end the fear and suffering of communities targeted and harassed by police.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Diverse local coalition redoubles efforts for justice and accountability For Immediate Release \u2013 November 24, 2014 Contact: Deborah Jacobs, 973-432-6868 St. Louis, MO \u2013 Don\u2019t Shoot, a coalition of approximately 50 local organizations formed in the\u00a0wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown, renewed its call for police accountability and\u00a0oversight following the Grand Jury\u2019s decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pep"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ripmikebrown-300x300.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3543,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions\/3543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}