70 days ago, a young unarmed American boy was gunned down on a hot August street in Ferguson, Missouri. People saw, people heard, and witnesses spoke up; but the killer is still free.

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Something is rotten in Missouri. Something needs fixing in the USA.

Not Talk, Walk

We are no longer content to be mere observers and/or chroniclers of injustice. In addition to railing at the powers-that-be by voicing our distress and supporting others who do likewise, we are also committed to taking action. We need to change the laws governing our law enforcement agencies; we need to force a change in the culture that would allow police officers in one state to kill three young black men in less than two months. We fight for Michael Brown, Kajieme Powell, Vonderitt Myers, and all the others who were sent to early graves by murderous cops. They deserve no less.  

If you have been following our series of diaries, you know that many members of Daily Kos contributed to a law over the past seven weeks, The Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act (MBOPRA).

Our MBOPRA and the NAACP

A couple of weeks ago, we launched a fleet of emails to groups all over the country, as reported here. Branches of the NAACP from several states forwarded our information to the national NAACP office, specifically to Mr. Hilary Shelton, who is the Washington Bureau Director, the Senior Vice President for Advocacy, and the successor of Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP. A member of Daily Kos spoke with Mr. Shelton last week for 20 minutes, and we learned that the NAACP has already written laws to halt thug-police. They already had created the following two bills:  

1. The End Racial Profiling Act of 2013(ERPA) was proposed by Representative John Conyers in the House as well as by a senator, but the ERPA has not been voted on yet.  The ERPA defines racial profiling and outlaws it here.

2. The Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act of 2000 (LETAIA) has been written but has not yet been proposed as a bill in either the House or the Senate. The LETAIA sets out standards for the use of force by the police here.

Our Good News

Our Daily Kos law contains provisions that the NAACP had not thought of. Our law fits very well with theirs. Our law gives individuals the ability to sue as private citizens, and their laws did not do that. We developed ideas that they had not considered!

They want to help us pass our law, and we think it appropriate to help them pass theirs.