Madison Demands Black Community Control of the Police

8 a.m. today – see you there?

In light of recent escalating police violence in Madison and across the country, Freedom, Inc., Young Gifted and Black Coalition, Groundwork, and SURJ call for Black community control of the police. On Monday morning, at 8:00 in front of the Downtown Police station at 211 S. Carroll, a crowd will gather to put a stop to business as usual. Other actions will be happening across the country today and this week through the Movement for Black Lives and the Showing Up for Racial Justice network of white anti-racist groups.

The recent murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling highlight once again the utter disregard for Black life by police departments across the country. We know that Madison is no exception with the vast racial disparities in arrest, the murder of Tony Robinson, and the recent beating of Genele Laird.

Many of us are heartbroken, traumatized and enraged by the ever increasing count of Black lives lost and abused at the hands of police across the country. Emily Blessing of Groundwork said “We cannot continue to allow business as usual, because business as usual is murder.”

If we cut the budget of the police and put that money towards better crisis mental health and wellness services, not mental health officers, we may have had an appropriate response to situations like Tony Robinson’s, we may have had the resources that Michael Schumacher needed and would not have been murdered when he was unable to manage his mental health symptoms on his own. By shaping the community response around the needs of the most impacted members of our community – most often Black, trans*, queer women – everyone will be safer.

Alix Shabazz, of Freedom Inc said, “If we had community control of the police, the perpetrators of these murders and beatings would be held accountable to the fullest extent, as these actions would be considered completely unacceptable.”

While Mayor Soglin and others try to shift the onus of the violence onto the victims and survivors for not behaving correctly around the police, we know that people like Philando Castile are murdered while doing just that, following police orders.

– We demand that the police stop killing Black people.
– We demand Community Control Over the Police so that people most impacted by police violence set the policies, practices, and priorities of the police. So that we can hire and fire and bring true accountability to those who are supposed to protect and serve.
– We demand the City of Madison invest in community not cops, that the budget of the Madison Police Department be cut by $6 million and that money redirected into needed community based resources, such as culturally relevant crisis mental wellness and conflict mediation.