Friends,
It’s been quite a year for Stop Police Terror Project DC, as the launch of our No More Stop & Frisk campaign happened alongside several incidents of racist police terror. While DC city government continues to use police as a military solution to social issues and the Metropolitan Police Department continues to lie and equivocate about the reality of racist stop-and-frisk policies in DC, we have remained focused on our campaign and on showing up for our neighbors when they need it.
This year saw the conclusion of a successful three-year legal campaign to get DC police to release stop data that only confirmed what communities living under police have been saying for so long, that stop-and-frisk is not only real in DC, but disproportionately impacts Black people. We celebrated that victory with the knowledge that it only marked the beginning of our fight against racist police violence:
DC police still have not released the body camera footage of the shooting of 22-year-old Marqueese Alston in June 2018, and there are still many questions around the police killing of D’Quan Young in May 2018 at the hands of an off-duty police officer. To this day, not even the name of the officer who shot D’Quan has been made public.
The immigrant community has also been a target of racist policing this year as just a few weeks ago DC police attacked a teenage girl and her younger brother in Columbia Heights. Their crime? Selling snacks. This is all happening against the backdrop of ongoing repression and surveillance of DC’s immigrant communities by ICE, who randomly roam buildings occupied by immigrants, seemingly arresting and detaining people at random, with a local chef, who is still being detained, falling victim last month.
As the new year approaches, our organizing, agitating and educating around stop-and-frisk will continue and intensify. As police agencies in the city continue to operate with near impunity, and as local government continues to funnel incredible amounts of money and resources to the police, while deep issues of poverty, affordable housing and employment go all but unacknowledged, we will continue to work just as hard to acknowledge those issues and protect our neighbors.
Thank you for standing alongside of us in 2019 and fighting to protect Black and brown communities in DC from racist police violence. One thing is certain, we cannot continue to organize without your support. Please consider becoming one of our sustaining donors as we enter 2020!
Yours in struggle,
Stop Police Terror Project DC
