FREE Brittany Martin
Brittany Martin is a Black freedom fighter and mama. Like so many, she heeded the call to demand justice for Black people in the wake of a surge in police and racist violence in 2020. Along with hundreds of freedom-loving people, Brittany was a part of a protest in Sumter, South Carolina in the names of #AhmaudArbery, #BreonnaTaylor, #GeorgeFloyd, and countless others.
When confronted by police, the pregnant mother of five, affirmed her love for Black people and made comments that the officer, and later the state, would contend were threats. Brittany was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. Within the first year of serving her sentence, Brittany was forced to give birth to her youngest child, Blessing, inside, denied the right to mother or breastfeed her infant, had her hair (a religious symbol) forcibly cut, denied attorney visits, been beaten, placed in solitary confinement, and transferred to an out-of-state prison without the knowledge or consent of her family.
Brittany and her family have suffered enough. In a nation that prides itself on freedom of speech, Ms. Martin never should have been arrested or imprisoned in the first place. Brittany’s family, the community, and the nation are calling for the full pardon and immediate release of Brittany Martin.
UPDATE!!!
End Police Associations (EPA)
POLICE ASSOCIATIONS ARE NOT REAL UNIONS
Unions are vital. They ensure fair wages and collective bargaining for millions of people. Unions build solidarity among working class people. Unions move us forward into a future grounded in equity and justice. We are 100% for unions.
But here’s the deal: police associations provide protections to cops who perpetuate violence, racism and white supremacy. Police associations claim to protect police in support of public safety, but the statistics say the opposite. The police are one of the leading causes of death for Black people.
Rather than fight for fair wages and working conditions, police associations use collective bargaining to negotiate for the right to kill and abuse our communities with impunity.
We can’t create safe communities when police are allowed to kill and abuse their power without consequence. That starts with real labor unions removing cops from the House of Labor.
The BREATHE Act
THE BREATHE ACT: TRANSFORMATIVE POLICY
BLM Grassroots is supporting local, statewide and federal advocacy for Black-centered civil and human rights legislation that will reallocate resources to repair the harm caused by policy and practice. The BREATHE Act establishes a standard for transformative policy that
reduces the investment in and normalization of a carceral system as justice. The BREATHE Act promotes community-driven policy that builds new systems of care to replace state-sanctioned violence.
BLM Grassroots: "Police Killings Map (2000-2021)"
POLICE KILLINGS HAVE BEEN UNDERREPORTED FOR DECADES LEAVING THE SCOPE OF POLICE VIOLENCE VASTLY UNDERESTIMATED
“GIS connects data to a map, integrating location data (where things are) with all types of descriptive information (what things are like there). This provides a foundation for mapping and analysis that is used in science and almost every industry. GIS helps users understand patterns, relationships, and geographic context. The benefits include improved communication, efficiency, management, and decision-making.” – ESRI
“On average, police in the United States shoot and kill over 1000 people annually. Following the 2014 killing of Michael Brown, an investigation by the Washington Post revealed FBI data on fatal police shootings was underreported by more than 50%. In 2021, still only one-third of these incidents were included in the FBI database. Under reporting is primarily due to the lack of mandatory reporting by local police departments and discrepancies over reporting responsibilities with the updated FBI system.” – @somethingBlackmade
“BLM Grassroots Police Killings Dashboard” reflects 22 years of police killings in the United States. This dashboard is for the purpose of tracking and researching fatal police killings.This dataset does not include off-duty, in-custody, and other police-related killings.
POLICE KILLINGS HAVE BEEN UNDERREPORTED FOR DECADES LEAVING THE SCOPE OF POLICE VIOLENCE VASTLY UNDERESTIMATED
“It is well known that black citizens have been the subject of disproportionate contact with police (Tonry, 2006). This paper explores contemporary policing, police discretion, and the use of lethal force conducting a spatial and temporal analysis of census tract level data of 64 fatal encounters with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) from 2000-2017. This study found most incidences of lethal force occurred in cumulatively disadvantaged neighborhoods and NOPD disproportionately used lethal force against black males. The goal of this project is to influence public policy surrounding police use of force incidences.” – Terry J. Wilson, II
BLM Grassroots: "Police Stations & Correctional Facilities (2024)" Map
STOP COP CITY
