Thread by @socialistdogmom

the crowd is filling in here in downtown charlottesville

community organizer ang is directing the crowd to look at this web page, which lists people & businesses who support the local police foundation

cvillepolicefoundation.org/supporters

“you will note that a lot of those supporters are on this downtown mall,” she says. she says we should all email these businesses & ask them to reconsider supporting the police department.

“nobody should be celebrating father’s day while black people are being murdered,” ang says. the crowd will march down the downtown mall & hold a noise demonstration.

everyone is saying defund the police

after a noisy walk down the downtown mall, we’ve moved onto market street, but only briefly. march marshals are moving people onto the sidewalk now.

a couple of the confederate monument guards are scrambling into position as the march passes the robert e lee statue without giving it so much as a glance. take it easy, brian & john.

moving down market now, in the direction of the police station

lmao i don’t know who did it, when or how, but someone hung a r*dsk*ns hat on traveler’s bridle 😂
(lee has been wearing the surgical mask for a week)

singing the song of the summer outside the police department

banner drop from the parking garage

supporters in their cars have blocked off market street on either side of the police station

“what the fuck good is it to make a recommendation” to a police department that has clearly demonstrated they don’t care what the community thinks? this speaker says we have to demand a civilian review board with subpoena power & the ability to ensure bad officers are fired.

“defund the police doesn’t stop with diverting funds from racist policing into our communities, defund the police goes all the way to abolition,”

“we also have to be building up the world we want to see,” says another speaker

“before the heinous murders of george floyd, breonna taylor, & tony mcdade, we were already practicing mutual aid all over this country,” she says. we have to tear town racist institutions while actively building up a world we want to share.
“we can do this! we will fucking win!”

the next speaker is a social worker, she says she knows what it’s like to beg a system that doesn’t care about people for resources they desperately need, while police departments get millions without question.

the next speaker says that as a white passing puerto rican, they can almost do whatever they want on the street... until they get in trouble. then they’re nothing more than their hispanic sounding name. regardless of the color of their skin, they are not white to the police.

still holding the block outside the police station, now chanting “don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit” - a reference to the fact that it’s always the police that start the riots. i’ve hardly seen the police tonight, which explains the nice block party vibe out here.

next speaker is a grad student at uva, training to be a school counselor. she says she experienced a lot of injustice as a young black girl but didn’t have the language to express it.

black students are disproportionately disciplined in school, “those babies need help too, it’s not just the ones being beaten & shot in the streets,” she says.

“when you say black lives matter, say it with your whole chest. every one - not just the ones with educations, ALL black lives matter,” she says - black trans people, black homeless people, ALL black lives.

“police do not keep us safe, we keep us safe, as you can see,” ang says, gesturing to the space we are holding. there are bike marshals, vehicles holding the road closed, medics, people handing out free snacks & drinks - we not only keep us safe, we take care of us.

ang asks everyone to take out their phones to sign this pledge to build a charlottesville beyond policing

actionnetwork.org/petitions/comm…

if you missed the link to the petition to defund the charlottesville police, it’s spray painted on the ground in front of the police station

i love watching art get made

everyone’s standing in a circle chanting & clapping while folks take turns beautifying the street outside the police station 😍

✨

market street has never looked better

a message for the charlottesville police

everyone is saying defund & abolish the police

“every night you can see unhoused people sleeping around here,” ang says as the crowd fills back in on the downtown mall outside city hall. “people walk by them every day & don’t stop.”
“we have to get out of the idea that unhoused people do not deserve something.”

she calls on all of us to stop & offer to help when we see an unhoused person. “that is community care.” get them something to eat, something to drink, give them some money.

“if you see someone get pulled over the police who looks like me, someone who is black, brown, or indigenous - i want you to stop & watch until they are safely on their way,” ang says.

“don’t hop on some hashtag if you are not doing the work to make sure every black, brown, and indigenous person is safe on these streets,” ang tells the crowd.
there’s more that you can do than just march.

“we have this idea that people who are incarcerated deserve to be there & that’s not true,” ang says - a system exists to disproportionately funnel black, brown & indigenous people into the prison system & it starts in schools.

“we have to envision that there is a world that is much better than we are living right now & we have to make that world,” she says. “we can make a world that is free of police. we literally can do it!”

“we need to make sure that every black, brown, and indigenous person is safe,” she says. record the police. “you can save someone’s life.”

“stop relying on systems of oppression, stop relying on slave patrols to solve our problems when you could just talk to your neighbor,” she says. “we need to start building community.” don’t call the cops on your neighbors. don’t call DSS on your neighbors.

keep up with @defundcpd on twitter, insta @ defundcvillepd, and facebook facebook.com/DefundCvillePD/

ang says those social media pages will have calls to action for future events as well as things people can do from home - scripts for contacting businesses who support the police foundation, scripts for contacting local elected officials, and more.

and that’s all for today! police departments around the country could learn something from cville pd: leave us alone & everything stays pretty chill. riot cops start riots.