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21 Apr, 8 tweets, 4 min read
NEWS: Accountability just nominated for a Webby Award!!

Last year, my org helped defenders, organizers, people caged, & artists, including Fiona Apple, amplify horrors of pretrial caging. Result: 100s new court watchers. Vote now to support transparency: wbby.co/soc-coactv
Defenders & organizers from PG County, MD reached out. With over 60 sworn declarations from courageous people inside of the COVID-infested jail. Knew we had to do something. GaspingForJustice.org is the product. To make it harder for people to ignore human suffering. Explore:
60+declarations like this. All submitted to a judge who called them "unhelpful." Potentially "isolated" incidents. Only "marginally relevant." Complained it hard to "cull the chaff from the wheat." Yet credited the jail.

Traditional legal advocacy wasn't going to work here.
Fiona Apple was one of over 60 advocates, artists, actors, academics who stepped up to read the courageous, painful words of dozens suffering in PG County jail.

“I’ve lost my spirit, sort of given up.” More:
Results of Gasping for Justice were staggering. 20k signatures demanding decarceration. County came to negotiating table. Howard Law School published a scathing report on court process. And these 2 brilliant leaders were joined by hundreds to court watch: washingtonpost.com/local/public-s…
Alarming current status: The only positive development for Justice from COVID is virtual public access to courts. "Now this access is being threatened by judges who want to expel community members from shining a light on the injustices happening every day."campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/keep…
We're still fighting. And your support voting for Gasping for Justice for the best Public Service & Activism website of the year will help shed a light on the continuing abuses in PG County & around the country.

Please vote here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/…
This project was a joint effort between the PG County Public Defenders, Life After Release (@releasemd), Civil Rights Corps (@CivRightsCorps), Broadway Advocacy Coalition (@BwayAdvocacyCo), & most significantly those caged pretrial & their families.

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More from @ScottHech

Scott Hechinger Profile picture
22 Apr
"The first breath that this baby had on this earth was one born out of violence."

A mom will get $750k after being shackled during labor. Yet:

-Taxpayers paid for this abuse. Not NYPD.
-It's not uncommon.
-NYPD patrol guide *still allows cops to do it.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/…
The trauma of this brutality is incalculable: "That was not my birth plan. I felt like a failure to my unborn bc that wasn't something that was planned for neither of us. I just didn't feel like myself anymore after that. I feel like my memory got taken away & still I'm in pain."
Meanwhile, for the NYPD and NYC Administration, it's just another settlement.

"NYPD declined to comment on the settlement. The New York City Law Department did not respond to requests for comment."

For the officers responsible: they're likely still on force. No discipline.
Read 4 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
15 Apr
Reminder: Mayor Lightfoot demeaned the "defund" movement as a "nice hashtag," fought bail reform, supported militarized responses to protests, & fought to block transparency & protect the most outrageous misconduct when cops raided a social workers home. She enabled this murder.
If history is any guide--and unfortunately it is--Mayor Lori Lightfoot will soon be slandering protestors as "looters" & defending her militarized police force as they beat, gas, & maim her residents. And then go on to support an increase in their budget for next year.
Last year, the Chicago Police Department’s budget totaled $1.68 billion, with $5 million spent on policing every day. chicago.suntimes.com/2020/6/8/21284…
Read 10 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
14 Apr
What if Derrick Chauvin didnt asphyxiate George Floyd? Kim Potter didnt shoot Daunte Wright? They'd still be alive, of course. But George & Daunte would still have been subjected to normal, brutal systemic physical & emotional violence. Like tens of thousands nameless every day.
The epidemic of police *murders* (call it what it is) underscores the ultimate & inevitable result of hypermilitarized policing w/o accountability. The ultimate loss for George Floyd, Duante Wright, & 1000s other Black men & families. But there's so much more invisible violence.
Millions of people each year suffer violence short of death. Unnecessary interactions not just with the police, but the legal system that go unnoticed. Not talking about just physical violence -- although state violence short of murder is also an epidemic. Emotional violence.
Read 10 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
13 Apr
"It’s easy to say you care about Black & Brown people. But when you have power to challenge systemic racism & you choose not to, that's scary."

Message to Oregon's Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum & other "progressive" leaders now calling for "justice:"
Weeks ago, Soledad O'Brien interviewed Terrence Hayes. Convicted by a non-unanimous jury. A practice enabled by Oregon's KKK to silence dissenting jurors & preserve white supremacy. Caged 13 years. His judge then is now the AG. With the power to topple this racist legal monument.
Ellen Rosenblum is now claiming falsely she doesn't have the power to act. "She said her hands were tied in the matter 16 years ago. It's no longer 16 years ago. They’re not tied today. She has ability and capacity to make a change and do something different." More:
Read 5 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
12 Apr
Police must be stripped of their discretion to interact with people. Far too risky & deadly. One place to start: Traffic stops. "Reassign most traffic enforcement to separate traffic agencies independent from police departments." It's not hard to imagine. theappeal.org/traffic-enforc…
"Of all functions that could be separated from police, one of the most significant would be removal of traffic enforcement. Over 24 million people each year come into police contact during a traffic stop. Stops can be especially dangerous & discriminatory for people of color."
Black drivers are 20% more likely to be stopped than white drivers.

As much as twice as likely to be searched.

11% of all fatal shootings by police in 2015 occurred during traffic stops.

Sources: Stanford Open Policing Project + Washington Post.
Read 10 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
12 Apr
25 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that cops could use any pretext (read: lie) to stop a car to search it & courts would not secondguess their motivations—race or otherwise. Car stops of Black & Brown people exploded. Congress & state legislatures can & must change this.
"An analysis of 7,000 police stops in 2019 in Boston showed that 70% of the people the BPD stopped were Black, though less than a quarter of Boston’s residents are Black." wgbh.org/news/local-new…
"The Stanford Open Policing Project analyzed 200 million records finding that Black drivers are stopped more often than white drivers and that police require less suspicion to search Black and Hispanic drivers than they do to search white drivers." openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/
Read 7 tweets

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