Latino and African American leaders in the field of public safety announced the formation of the so-called Southern California / LA Peacekeeping Personnel Collective (SCLAPC) .
One of the objectives of the group is to monitor each incident of police brutality and demand justice as occurred in the case of George Floyd , who was murdered by now-convicted Minneapolis, Minnesota, former police officer Derek Chauvin.
The initiative, which includes a diverse group of anti-gang intervention organizations and professionals trained to work in urban communities, will be launched through a “proactive action plan,” said Dr. Aquil Basheer, Founder and Executive Director of the Unified Brotherhood Independent Leadership Through Discipline Program (BUILD).
Said plan identifies the specific geographic areas where it is intended to lead, des rrolling and training high-risk non-police critical response teams and includes professionals called leading navigators.
Other elements are the expansion of geographic security centers and restoration centers in specific areas, in addition to the saturation of credible and involved messengers in the identified areas; training and increasing the number of violence interrupters in all areas to solidify the National Training and Certification Institute.
“As the initiative progresses, additional components may be added,” he said. Dr. Basheer, an expert in gang intervention. “The first inclusive step will be to gain the endorsement of the Los Angeles City Council, the Board of Supervisors, followed by a petition to Governor Gavin Newsom” to implement the six components.
Southern California / LAPeacemakers Collaborative (SCLAPC) would help advance community policing and criminal justice system reform implementation nationwide.
The revival of the peace initiative coincided with the increase in gun violence in the United States, the involvement of the police in numerous shootings that have taken the lives of many Latinos and African Americans, the unprovoked racist attacks against Asian Americans, and the guilty verdict of former police officer Derek Chauvin.
“The verdict is just a grain in the sand “Dr. Aquil Basheer told Real America News. “Until we take care of the problems broader systemic, people will think that they can do what they do without consequences. ”
If so, -he added-“ then we have not made any progress. ”
And he made it clear that no one should be in a celebratory attitude.
“We have too much work to do and the root causes of what it does that an officer or someone within the public safety system thinks that he or she can value or devalue someone’s life as they did George Floyd. ”
‘Racism will never end’
However, the murder conviction of ex-cop Derek Chauvin itself is an extremely rare event.
According to a report by Philip Stinson, Professor of Criminal Justice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, from the beginning of 2005 until the 14 June 2019, in the United States there have only been 104 local, state or federal officers or police who have been arrested for murder or manslaughter as result of a shooting while on duty.
Of those 104 official, to date only 35 have been convicted of a crime resulting from the shooting on duty (15 for guilty plea, 20 convicted in a jury trial and none convicted by a court trial). That suggests that the chances of a police murder leading to a conviction for that crime are roughly one in 2, 000.
However, a jury in Minneapolis convicted Derek Chauvin on Tuesday. for murder in the second degree (as well as two other charges) for killing George Floyd in May of 2020. A typical sentence for that offense is 12 years and a half in prison, although prosecutors have asked for more and the maximum is 40 years. A judge will sentence Chauvin in two months.
“Systemic racism will never end; Let’s remember that the police were born in the United States to capture slaves and racism has been there since the country was born. It’s only going to end when the country ends, ”said Gerardo Arellano, a member of Inner City Vissions, a youth development and gang prevention and intervention organization in the Florence-Firestone geographic area, in Los Angeles County.
“The verdict against the police officer was fair, but that is only the beginning and there is a long way to go; there are thousands of lawsuits that have not yet been resolved and justice is lacking for thousands of families, ”he declared.
Alex Sánchez, executive director of Homies Unidos, whose anti-gang programs offer various avenues for help young people make better decisions and take them away from the streets, he said that they have also organized to be present when there are incidents of police brutality, but in their effort, he stressed, they have suffered police persecution.
“We need to sit at the table where decisions are made and we do not need to go around begging for crumbs, because we have fought for years to try to help solve the violence,” Sánchez told Real America News, who, on the other hand, considered that the guilty verdict against the white police officer Derek Chauvin was fair.
“We will have to wait and see if this act is not just a grain in the sand,” he commented. “… This system has taken advantage of our communities and California realized that having a mass incarceration system has been of no use. We believe that this system has to change with a new mentality and philosophy of understanding public safety. ”
In the Peacekeeping Personnel Collective in Southern California / LA (SCLAPC) will also collaborate organizations such as BUILD Program, Outreach 360, Stop the violence, Revolve Impact, United Hood Nation, the Revenve Project, South Bureau Ministerial Alliance, Confidential Matters Inc, Project Kingship, Young Visionaries, New Ground de Santa Ana, Homies Unidos and Comunnities in Schools in North Hills.