Thread by @latinojustice

🧵Statement from LatinoJustice PRLDEF on the killing of Adam Toledo by an officer with the Chicago Police Department. 1/

With the revelation of yet another false narrative from law enforcement to conceal the murder of one more unarmed child, we must accept that a system that so relentlessly devalues Black and brown lives cannot be reformed. 2/

Adam Toledo was a 13-year old child. Neither his youth nor his compliance saved him from being murdered by police, just as 20-year-old father Daunte Wright’s fear and lack of a weapon did not save him. When neither compliance nor flight is an option, what’s left? 3/

We can no longer endure the profound and dangerous dissonance in this country between policing and public safety.

We can no longer accept a society where Black and brown children, fathers, and mothers might not make it back home each night. 4/

We will no longer allow a criminal justice system to assault our communities with impunity. 5/

However, we will no longer demand justice in their names and in the names of the countless humans before them whose lives were snatched from us in the name of policing. Justice has never been extended to individuals in our communities. 6/

No amount of training can eradicate the deep racism that permeates every American police agency and contributes to the view of brown and Black individuals as threats to be eliminated. 7/

We demand transformation. We can no longer accept armed agents of the state executing our community members. 8/

We demand that every law enforcement agency in this country sit down immediately with representatives of community organizations that have proposed funds be shifted from law enforcement to the communities they profess to serve (continued) 9/

and, together, agree on plans to scale down American militarized police forces. 10/

We demand that every law enforcement agency in this country, in cooperation with those community organizations, conceive and implement accountability measures for officers who brutalize or kill community members, measures that are transparent, meaningful, and immediate. 11/

We will accept nothing less. /12