CORRESPONDENCE - 75A-1 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Salas, Diana From: Jessica Jimenez <jessicaijimenez@berkeley.edu> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 3:06 PM To: eComment Subject: public comment for city council meeting 6/16/2020 defund the police My name is Jessica Jimenez and as a Santa Ana resident I urge the city council to remove all funding from the Santa Ana Police Department and allocate those funds towards our schools, free clinics, mental health resources, free and affordable public housing, community gardens, and other resources that would actually benefit the community. The Santa Ana Police Department is one of the most violent in the country and too many residents have horrific stories about police brutality from SAPD. The police do nothing to keep us safe and are only there to violently manage social issues that the government and city has failed to address. With all the funding that the police get, these funds can be allocated to making our community safer on our own terms. The police are bad at their job. SAPD does not solve crimes or homicides to the extent that we are told they do. They spend most of their day issues tickets, harassing houseless people and using excessive force on residents without justification. If you call SAPD they can take hours to arrive and upon arrival they will write a report and leave if they don't escalate the situation themselves. The police do not solve any issues within our community and they do nothing to prevent violence or increase safety. The police are the violence. I encourage the city council to read Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis, The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, and Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas by Sally Hadden. I know that it is in the city council's best interest to keep the police because the police work for them and their capitalist values. But it comes at the expense of the people. Santa Ana needs a radical change that abandons policing and looks towards a future that addresses social issues in a tangible way. Defund and abolish SAPD. ACAB.