Scott Roberts, senior director of felony justice and democracy campaigns at Colour Of Change issued the next assertion following the video footage launched by the Grand Rapids Police within the homicide of Patrick Lyoya:
“The homicide of Patrick Lyoya, who was shot at point-blank vary and killed by a Grand Rapids Police Officer throughout a site visitors cease, was tragic, preventable, and reminscent of numerous incidents of cops killing Black folks. The police acted with callous indifference, traumatizing the Grand Rapids neighborhood — significantly its Black immigrant inhabitants — and ripping aside Patrick’s household. Our hearts are with them throughout this devastating time.
We stand with Patrick’s household and the Grand Rapids neighborhood to demand that officers disclose the identify of the police officer who shot and killed Patrick, and make sure the officer is fired. Moreover, we echo calls for for a radical federal investigation into each Patrick’s homicide and the historical past and tradition of racist violence within the Grand Rapids Police Division.
For years, folks in Grand Rapids and throughout the nation have taken a stand towards police violence, calling for community-led alternate options to policing that might have prevented this mindless homicide from taking place within the first place. But, the requires police reform and accountability have been met with extra policing, bloated police budgets, and surveillance know-how that spies on and terrorizes Black communities. However these techniques solely endanger our communities. Once we depend on public security approaches that begin and finish with police — like we’re seeing in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and elsewhere — police violence turns into inevitable. Patrick’s homicide makes it clear that when a police-only method to public security is the default response, tragedy turns into the norm. Elected officers and legislators can’t proceed to depend on ineffective, racist, and violent policing as a response to each disaster. We want lawmakers at each stage of presidency to spend money on the packages and sources that assist communities thrive — this consists of housing, training, psychological well being care, various first responders and violence interruption programming.
It’s previous time we advance forward-thinking, community-led options to public security with out increasing the present police-only method. That’s the solely manner our communities can really be secure.”
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