Thread by @IndivChi_South

Today, @CAARPRNow & @ChicagoGapa held a joint press conference to announce a historic ordinance for police accountability in Chicago: Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS).

They call on City Council to pass & @chicagosmayor to sign. THREAD

facebook.com/ChicagoGAPA/vi…

Tamer Abouzeid @TamerLikeHammer opens ECPS press conference, citing numerous alders & orgs that played a role in creating "the people's ordinance for fixing policing in Chicago." @CAARPRNow @ChicagoGapa & supporters call on City Council to pass ordinance & @chicagosmayor to sign

.@aldsophiaking (4th ward), Chair of @ProgressiveChi, played a key role bringing together orgs that had originally proposed CPAC or GAPA to work out "the people's bill" to do "the people's will" for police accountability: Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance

Keeping in mind people like Laquan McDonald, killed by police, and Anjanette Young, who survived a mistaken home raid, @aldsophiaking says it is imperative for her colleagues and @chicagosmayor to enact ECPS.

Ald @RoderickTSawyer (6th ward), who originally sponsored GAPA proposal, helped work out the unity ordinance with CPAC supporters to create ECPS. We have "a true people's ordinance," the "most transformative police oversight bill in the United States."

Ald Carlos Ramirez-Rosa @CDRosa (35th ward), who originally sponsored #CPACnow ordinance, says CPAC & GAPA supporters worked together to create a principled compromise representing Chicago's diverse communities: ECPS is a powerful response to the broken policing system in Chicago

Ald @CDRosa says the ECPS unity proposal results from hard work done together by people directly impacted by broken policing system, legal experts, CPAC & GAPA coalitions, + communities.

Ald @CDRosa explains: ECPS ordinance would create a civilian oversight commission with final say over policy, wd hire/fire COPA administrator. ECPS ordinance also gives people of Chicago the chance to democratically decide if they want to go further with civilian oversight.

Desmon Yancy of @imancentral notes broad coalition of orgs & alds that worked to create ECPS. He asks Ald Taliaferro, chair of Public Safety Cmte, to support ECPS. He calls on @chicagosmayor to sign ECPS & fulfill her campaign promise to transform policing via civilian oversight.

Armanda Shackelford is mother of Gerald Reed, incarcerated for 30+ years after being tortured into a confession by CPD. She says: "If this ordinance had been in existence years ago, my son and other men & women who are wrongfully convicted would not be where they are today."

Carletta Pittman, leader w/ @GKMC18 & @SWOPChicago, says "at the hands of the police, my community has been victimized, brutalized, harassed, murdered." She supports community oversight as 1st step to needed change; ECPS ultimately lets the people decide how policing shd be done

Carletta Pittman @GKMC18 calls on @chicagosmayor to follow through on her promises - approve ECPS & don't come up with a separate, weaker proposal. Ms Pittman says ECPS "has gone thru a true community-based process" - it's what the people are demanding, alderman must support!

"I didn't think I'd live to see this moment" says Frank Chapman, leader of @NAARPR & @CAARPRNow, who was instrumental in reaching agreement on the unity proposal ECPS. "This is the defining moment of who we are as a nation."

We have an opportunity here to turn the tide in the favor of the people. All we're asking for is our inalienable democratic right to say who polices our communities & how our communities are policed. ~Frank Chapman, re unity ordinance Empowering Communities for Public Safety ECPS

We have a coalition powerful enough to win this struggle. We're going to win it by standing united. The people of Chicago can and will carry the day. ~Frank Chapman @CAARPRNow, on ECPS, the ordinance for Empowering Communities for Public Safety

Tamer Abouzeid @TamerLikeHammer says ECPS ordinance is a "transformational piece of legislation borne out of years of struggle & community input... We have done our work. It's time for the Cmte on Public Safety to do its work. It's time for the mayor to do her work." Enact ECPS!

Tamer Abouzeid calls on Ald Taliaferro to get the ECPS to the City Council to the floor and calls on all alders to vote to approve it. He calls on @chicagosmayor to "stand with the people and support this ordinance... so that Chicagoans get the public safety system they deserve."

Tamer Abouzeid acknowleges by name the many alders who played a role in the process of creating the unity proposal of the ECPS.

Ald Leslie Hairston @5thWardChicago says "Over the past 5 years, we realized each of us is greater when we come together." ECPS "turns the page on an awful history within CPD & puts the power in the people, the ones who have borne the brunt of brutality." Thousands support ECPS!

Via Q & A: The ordinance is called ECPS, Empowering Communities for Public Safety, and the commission it creates is the Community Commission on Public Safety. Tamer Abouzeid explains we don't want to focus just on policing but also on other things that make our communities safer.

In sum: A broad coalition of alders, justice orgs, community orgs, labor orgs, faith communities, & community members calls on the City Council to pass the ECPS ordinance & @chicagosmayor @LoriLightfoot to sign!