What Happened to Symone Marshall? #STDDs #BLM

A 22-year-old young woman had an accident on a major highway on April 26. She told her sister that she was run off the road by a truck driver (there’s some question as to whether this was racially motivated). Police were called to the scene, the young woman was not taken to the hospital, she was arrested for not having a valid drivers license — some reports said she was found to have drugs on her — she could not make bail, two weeks after her accident and arrest, Symone Marshall was found unresponsive in her cell. Yes, another young black woman dies while in custody.

Honey Marshall says that her sister, who has a 3-year-old daughter, repeatedly complained about her head hurting and that she kept blacking out. Marshall was held for two weeks at the local jail, where she died on May 10 due to a blood clot in her lung, according to Honey Marshall.

“I called the jail several times and requested for them to take her to a real hospital and they wouldn’t do so,” Honey told the New York Daily News. “If they would have [done] this, her death could have been prevented and my sister would still be here. My heart hurts so bad. She was my best friend. I am so angry that they did this to her.”

 Symone is just the latest in in a fast growing list of women of color — cisgender and transgender -  who have become victims of law enforcement officers in the police force and in the prison system. Most everyone knows about Sandra Bland, the young woman who was on her way to her new job at her alma mater when she was pulled over for failure to signal a lane change and who was then “found dead” in her jail cell. What most of us don’t know is that Sandra is only the most celebrated case of the violence that is being visited upon black and brown women.

 Let’s say the name of Symone  Marshall and of all the others who were sent to early graves, whether through murderous actions or depraved indifference. And let us do more: let's enact laws to police the police.

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What to do with our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act:

• Print out the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act and send it your representatives.
• Email the law to your representatives and to civil rights organizations.
• Tweet the law to your representatives and to the Democratic presidential candidates.
• Call your representatives and ask what are they doing about police brutality in general and implementing our law in particular.

• Contact your United States senator and contact your representative in the United States Congress. Call their office. Talk to a staff member. Call every week. Set up meetings. Organize a group to go to a meeting with your congressperson.

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UPDATE ON OUR CALIFORNIA BALLOT INITIATIVE

We are rapidly approaching the signature collection phase of our campaign to get the Over-Policed Rights Act on the California ballot. We will be needing your help.

This is a screengrab of the Summary and Title of the Ballot Initiative sent to us by  the California Department of Justice:

 

We await word from the Secretary of State who will be sending us a schedule with the maximum filing deadline and the certification deadline.

More awesome news!  Our law has been submitted as a Resolution to the NAACP. That august body will now discuss and then vote on whether to adopt The Michael Brown Over-Police Rights Act (MBOPRA) at the Legislative Session of the NAACP’s Annual Convention. 

Stay tuned!

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Meet the Model Cop

 This report made me tear up:

 

This situation could easily have gone wrong. An autistic North Carolina teen with a history of violent behavior, and who school officials believed was also suicidal, left his school campus without permission. School officials immediately called the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which dispatched Officer Tim Purdy. [...]

"In order to build a connection with the young man, Officer Purdy sat next to him on the ground, talked things through and even got him laughing," the Facebook post read.

Because the officer was able to talk with the young man, the student was able to get the help he needed.

Tim Purdy did not approach the teen with gun drawn, he didn’t bum rush him while shouting that he should get down in the dirt. He didn’t kneel in the boy’s back while violently twisting his arms behind him. He didn’t shout that the boy was grabbing for his gun as a pretext to make a killing. 

Instead, Mr. Purdy was everything we have been begging for. He was calm, he was empathetic, he was professional, he was friendly. He was there to serve and protect and that was as it should be...every time.

Thank you, Officer Purdy. We pray for your safety as you continue to lead the way.

Officer Tim Purdy gets the Support the Dream Defenders Humanitarian Award! 

Dashcam shows officers standing around as 3 girls drown

Dashcam footage released shows that sheriff's deputies did not try to save three Florida teenagers who were drowning after driving into a cemetery pond in a stolen car last month, Raw Story reports. 

Dominique Battle, 16, and Ashaunti Butler and Laniya Miller, both 15, died March 31 after a car chase with officers. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office had previously claimed that the deputies had taken off their gun belts and entered the pond once they realized that the girls were trapped inside, but the officers’ feet sank into the mud at the bottom of the pond, causing them to deem any attempt at rescue too risky. 

In the audio of the footage, however, deputies standing by their cruiser can be heard discussing whether to go in after the girls.

"I hear them yelling, I think!" one officer says.