Important Petition and Next Steps for Police Accountability

[Jonathan Leavitt]

Friends,

Please sign and share this important petition calling for an independent investigation and meaningful accountability for police violence used on Vermont protesters doing civil disobedience on July 29th. http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-weinberger-burlington-city-council-burlington-police-commission-deliver-an-independent-investigation-and-meaningful-accountability#news

The next police commission meeting is Wednesday the 26th of September at the Burlington Police Department. Ideally we could have hundreds of petition signatures and a packed room, and make justice rain down like water, so that Vermont's longstanding respect for civil disobedience is re-instituted.

Based on the pro-forma process laid out by the police commission August 28th, citizens, injured protesters and a City Councilor expressed a fear this would be allowed to "die in committee," without the independent investigation or meaningful accountability our community needs to heal. The BPD report being dropped during happy hour on a Friday evening and the Police Commission being scheduled by City Hall to fall on a hotly contested primary night would seem to corroborate this. To wit: Channel 17 was stretched so thin because of primary night no publicly accessible video of the meeting exists. There's a marked irony in this coming from a Mayor who ran on transparency and an engaged public process. 

Additionally citizens in attendance expressed concerns about a perceived bias of the commission: As the commission chair immediately narrowed the scope of the police commission's review, taking the question of the expired munitions and other pressing questions off the table with little discussion, despite a large amount of testimony; three of five commission members including the chair appeared more concerned with accepting at face value the stated intent of the powerful than with outcomes for the community; and there was a reluctance by the commission to even elaborate as to a road map of how citizens could move the proceedings out of the commission's hands an into the hands of an independent investigation. The report itself is marked by too many distortions, mis-framing and leading statements to fully elaborate on in this context. It's worth noting there was a clear power dynamic inside the police commission meeting: approximately 15 officers, most of whom were armed, as well as a police dog watched over and even videotaped citizens' testimony. 

Long time racial justice leaders in the community have confided to me that the commission doesn't serve its intended function, but rather serves to whitewash department wrongdoing. After the tenor of last week's let it "die in committee" meeting, I'm beginning to appreciate their sentiments with a profound new resonance.

The Mayor endorsed the actions of the police before any sort of inquiry has even begun. It seems really inappropriate for the Mayor, or any policy maker, to endorse the police department's shooting Vermont citizens engaged in civil disobedience before an sort of investigation has determined anything. Additionally, one didn't get the sense that the police inquiry into themselves would yield meaningful accountability when the Chief of Police, rather than quietly and diligently overseeing the investigation, instead is out there in the media making erroneous statements on VPR, as did one of his surrogates also did on Front Porch Forum. Namely, Chief Schirling's claims the use of excessive use of force was justified based on protesters touching batons. This is something which he would later admit didn't happen as Seven Days reported. There is a principal in journalism called the recency effect, basically that people remember the last big headline as the history of an event, not any follow up corrections. Through this lens one can better understand the media presence of institutional actors (such as the Mayor and the Chief), as shaping the collective memory of our city regarding historic use of violence against protesters engaged in civil disobedience on July 29th, while simultaneously hindering any sort of independent investigation. 

In Solidarity,

J

[Alexander Percivul Ruhe]

Thank you Jonothan for your karmically gracious good work holding the unfair oppressive system as needing to be accountable for their actions, like all good citizens : )  lol ~ Sonder Ruhe

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ELFkind Production working for Ecotopia Systems, SunSeerly, AleSonder PS Ruhe