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Orozco, Norma <br />From: Abel Ruiz <agruiz@ucdavis.edu> <br />Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2020 9:51 AM <br />To: eComment <br />Subject: Defund the Police and Support Community Approaches <br />Hello, <br />My name is Abel Ruiz, I am a Santa Ana Resident and have been since 1996. I am e-mailing to express my <br />concern over the exorbitant percentage that 'public safety' portion of the city budget is getting. I belief that if we <br />were to take a preventage approach to addressing the city's safety issues, we would be much better off. As a <br />resident, I don't think that the police is here to serve us, in fact, I have been profiled and harassed by the police a <br />couple of times just for being outside walking to the store, in one occasion, and the other one is because I was <br />going to the bus stop to go to school. I do not trust the police even if they do their community friendly <br />approaches which they mostly use to turn families against each other. About ten years ago, my mom was part of <br />a similar program, and she quit it because the police were asking information from moms in the program to get <br />insight into the neighborhood where we lived. These community approaches are just low key intelligence <br />gathering tactics that ultimately do not come into our communities with the right intention. They also create a <br />double morality. On the one hand, we have the gang unit profiling young people in the neighborhood and on the <br />other there is officer goody two shoes that is coming to our moms talking about building relationships. That is <br />hypocrisy to say the least. <br />Give more funding to parks and recs and other genuine community serving departments. Right now, I don't <br />understand that all the community gardens are closed. Food production is a good way to save money and right <br />now, countless families in Santa Ana are looking for every way to income patch. Food is essential to weather <br />the current crisis and the city has closed a genuine way to do that. The city should actually be going in the <br />opposite direction, give land to the community so we can do something with it. <br />Thank you. <br />Abel, Ward 6 <br />