Show Up! Shout Out! Defund the Police!

 The City Council has been ignoring our demands for Study Session Council Meetings with subject matter experts in macro-social work and racial equity and local non-profits, Town Halls in every district, a transparent and detailed police budget, transparent police data including traffic stop records and patrolling heat maps, and 3rd party oversight and auditing of the police. Remind them that the conversation is not over and we have not given up on our demands!

• 6:00pm – Meet at Concord City Hall, check-in, and get your protest sign.
• 6:30pm – Concord City Council Meeting starts on Zoom. All protesters should join the meeting!
• 6:35pm – At the General Public Comment period, raise your hand in Zoom. When chosen, ask them to turn on your video, then give your comment with the crowd in solidarity behind you!

We have been working with the Mayor to schedule two Study Session Council Meetings featuring experts in macro-social work and racial equity and local non-profits. We need the City Council to make an effort to learn how to create equitable public safety in Concord with the same care and attention they showed during their formal Study Session Council Meeting with the Chief of Police.

We have been working with the Mayor to schedule five Town Halls, one in each Concord district. By breaking down the audience by district, we create more time for the community to speak and voice their concerns. We also get to focus on the specific needs of each district, as not all of our districts are the same. Instead, the Mayor has decided to schedule one, city-wide conversation on mental health and homelessness with the intention of teaching the public what services are provided. Every action the Mayor has taken has been to discredit the voices calling to defund the police and create equitable public safety by saying we don’t really know how the systems work. He has made no effort to really listen, admit a potential gap in his knowledge of the possibilities, and learn more about what we are trying to accomplish.

We have been asking the Chief of Police weekly for reports on misconduct and civilian complaints, patrol dispatch patterns and heat maps, records of traffic stops with district and demographic information, and transparent budget breakouts showing how “Field Ops Administration” money is distributed among internal police departments. Not only has the Chief not given us access to this information, but he hasn’t even been responding to us at all.

When we called for civilian oversight and 3rd party auditing of the police department so civilians can safely file complaints with someone other than a police employee, we were told there aren’t enough complaints to warrant this action. The reality is that complaint numbers are low because people are afraid to complain about police to police, people know that complaining to the police and asking them to investigate themselves is futile, and, surprisingly, many citizens don’t know they can call and complain. We need to fix these issues so we can better hold police accountable for their abuse.

Join us this Tuesday, August 4th at 6:00pm at Concord City Hall to protest the City Council Meeting and put community pressure on these demands. The Council has said on multiple occasions that we are just a small group of loud individuals or just “three or four form letters.” We need to show them how big of a group we are! Individuals at our protest will have the opportunity to make public comments on the City Councils Zoom Meeting and show their video. When the video is turned on, the commenter will have the power of the group in solidarity behind them.