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The Members of the San Diego Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, are called to condemn police violence against persons of color and confront racism and white privilege. We realize there are means of educating our peace officers and of promoting peaceful conflict resolution without militarization. These methods are sorely needed in the present environment of unrest. The attached statement expresses our views and urges our government officials to implement or strengthen these proven means of conflict de-escalation and peace officer review.
We look forward to progressive changes in government policy.
Sincerely,
Karen M. Campos
San Diego Friends Meeting
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To Officials of the Cities and County of San Diego from La Jolla Friends Meeting:
Quaker testimonies require us to examine our own behavior as individuals and as a group. We are also required to speak out when we see injustice, violence and oppression in the public realm. We must address systemic racism within ourselves, our social, religious, and economic institutions, and our civil society.
We are appalled by the scale of police violence against people of color. The brutal murder of George Floyd is yet one more consequence of a racist system that has disproportionately targeted people of color for violence, imprisonment, and death for many years. The killing of countless people of color in the custody of police officers must stop.
We thank the City and County of San Diego for the recent ban on chokeholds and strongholds announced by the San Diego Police Department and the San Diego County Sheriff. We urge city and county officials to take further steps to protect communities and police officers by considering the following measures:
1. Develop a system of community based policing, based on understanding and addressing community concerns and the hiring of officers from within the communities they police.
2. Strengthen independent police review boards in the cities and County of San Diego, giving them subpoena power to review incidents involving officers, and a real voice beyond the advisory level. Institute such boards where they do not exist.
3. Examine hiring practices, training, and the work culture of law enforcement with an eye to eliminating both systemic and overt racism.
4. Promote policies, training, and procedures that address racism and encourage peaceful conflict resolution and de-escalation. Promptly remove officers who cannot adapt.
5. Roll back the militarization of law enforcement agencies where it has occurred, examining equipment acquisition and training. Keep the focus on protecting communities rather than controlling them, removing the roots of uprising and rebellion rather than suppressing them.
6. Consider limiting the role of the police to situations for which they are trained and needed. Explore alternatives outside law enforcement and the criminal justice system for such issues as homelessness, mental illness, domestic violence and substance addiction. Money saved can be redirected to fund such solutions as housing, rehab facilities, domestic violence shelters, and the hiring of social workers, mental health and medical professionals.
2. Strengthen independent police review boards in the cities and County of San Diego, giving them subpoena power to review incidents involving officers, and a real voice beyond the advisory level. Institute such boards where they do not exist.
3. Examine hiring practices, training, and the work culture of law enforcement with an eye to eliminating both systemic and overt racism.
4. Promote policies, training, and procedures that address racism and encourage peaceful conflict resolution and de-escalation. Promptly remove officers who cannot adapt.
5. Roll back the militarization of law enforcement agencies where it has occurred, examining equipment acquisition and training. Keep the focus on protecting communities rather than controlling them, removing the roots of uprising and rebellion rather than suppressing them.
6. Consider limiting the role of the police to situations for which they are trained and needed. Explore alternatives outside law enforcement and the criminal justice system for such issues as homelessness, mental illness, domestic violence and substance addiction. Money saved can be redirected to fund such solutions as housing, rehab facilities, domestic violence shelters, and the hiring of social workers, mental health and medical professionals.
Choosing not to act is a choice too, and it is imperative that we work together to end the legacy of violence we have inherited from our history, both local and national. Too many people have lived in fear too long. We ask you to join with the people of all races who have filled the streets of the cities and towns of San Diego County and the US seeking fundamental change so that we may finally, and in truth, have justice for all. We ask you to act as if lives depend on it. They do.
James R. Summers, Clerk,
On behalf of La Jolla Monthly Meeting
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
14 June 2020
Minute on Engagement to Uproot and Dismantle Racism in Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting
Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends acknowledges the centrality, depth, and pervasiveness of systemic racism in the United States. Continuing revelations of history, experience, and conscience challenge Friends to live up to the Light, increasing awareness of how we, our communities, and our institutions perpetuate the structure of racism. We must help one another discern what Spirit calls us to do individually and corporately.
We utterly reject the racial status quo. People are suffering and dying daily as a result of systemic racial bias within and across institutions and economic structures, which reproduces inequity and discrimination for “people of color” and unearned advantage for “others". We call upon ourselves as Friends to illuminate, uproot, and dismantle white privilege because it is used to maintain white dominance.
Systemic racism creates a barrier to living fully into our deepest Quaker values as reflected in all of our testimonies. We seek to bring about a truly inclusive, compassionate, diverse Religious Society of Friends through which our individual lives speak to our collective belonging to one another and Creation. We commit to the work of healing and transforming to make foundational change in our Meeting. We commit equally to the work of dismantling the political and economic structures of racism and opening to acceptance of real beauty in human difference.
Approved 2/9/20
Berkeley, California
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Another is from Live Oak Friends:
June 20, 2020
We, the Live Oak Friends Meeting of Salinas, are grieved and outraged by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; the racially motivated killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others. As Quakers, we are guided by the values of equality, peace and community.
We issue you a Call to Action to peoples of all faiths for substantial reforms to policing, to include the following:
Unjustified police violence and homicides, most recently Mr. George Floyd’s senseless murder by four members of the Minneapolis Police, must end.
We must return to Community-Oriented Policing. Serving and protecting the people must be based on the philosophy of "full service personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems.” (Bertus Ferreira).
We encourage establishment of citizen-police review panels to assist departments’ adherence to policy by using modern tools of data collection and analysis (e.g., use-of-force incidents), effective communications and accountability. Police departments’ commitment to such oversight panels will ensure safe and satisfying policing in our neighborhoods.
We encourage the creation of a national database of individual police abuse, so that abusive officers cannot be rehired by another police jurisdiction.
We must demilitarize police forces by divesting military-grade equipment assets (armored troop carriers, sound cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, etc.) that have been supplied by the Pentagon, with Federal monetary incentives to use.
We must immediately discontinue “police exchanges,” for the purpose of training, with Israel, China and other countries that use brutal means to suppress peaceful demonstration.
We must increase police training in skills to de-escalate volatile situations, use alternatives to lethal force, and eliminate racist policing.
It is time to review Police Department budgets, to allocate more monies to retraining of police, and to consider moving some of police funds to programs for social services, education, healthcare, and youth.
Please join us in taking effective action by contacting your local, state and national officials to ask for these reforms.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Richman, Clerk
Live Oak Friends Meeting of the
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
1014 Circle Drive, Salinas, California 93905
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