FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

09/23/09

Peoples' Justice Launches Outreach and Ad Campaign to Encourage Cop Watch and Education About New Yorkers' Rights

The NYC-wide coalition, Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability(PJ), has launched an outreach campaign encouraging community-based organizing to prevent police violence in Washington Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick. The components of the campaign include billboard advertisements encouraging residents to get involved with Cop Watch, as well as a series of murals aimed at educating community members about their rights when confronted by law enforcement officers.

The billboard ads feature a silhouette image of police violence being observed and documented by community-empowered residents armed with video cameras and cellular phones. The intention of the ads is to inform community residents that observing police activity is legal and can help in deterring abuse, as well as provide critical evidence in cases of police brutality. The ads are also meant to generate interest in forming coordinated Cop Watch teams of residents from neighborhoods that see disproportionate levels of police violence.

"Cop Watch provides community members with a way to use their legal rights to observe and record police activities and hold law enforcement accountable," says Loyda Colon, coordinator of Peoples' Justice and Director of the Justice Committee (thejusticecommitte.org). "Too often in low-income communities of color, the police think they can act with impunity and abuse their power by perpetrating verbal, physical and sexual violence against community members, without legal cause. Peoples' Justice is asking New Yorkers to stand up and help turn this around by exercising their legal right to organize and watch the police." Peoples' Justice offers Cop Watch and Know Your Rights Trainings to groups interested in starting Cop Watch teams in their neighborhoods.

About Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability:  Peoples' Justice is a coalition of NYC-based grassroots organizations that have joined forces towin community control and police accountability.

Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability

Statement on the NYPD Killing of Iman Morales

Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability condemns the killing of Iman Morales by the NYPD last Wednesday afternoon in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Like the shooting deaths of Sean Bell and Jayson Tirado by NYPD officers, Mr. Morales death sends yet another message that the lives of people of color in New York City are expendable. Furthermore, it is another example of the NYPD's disregard and disrespect of people with disabilities.

Incidents such as the killings of Eleanor Bumpers, Gideon Busch, Khiel Coppin, and now Iman Morales are evidence of the NYPD's blatant dehumanization of people with mental disabilities. Peoples' Justice supports the call of Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities' (RIPPD) for the NYPD to make use of crisis intervention teams. Such teams, which exist in other parts of the country and have been used with great success, are well trained in non-lethal de-escalation techniques and are prepared to deal with similar situations without the use of TASERs or any other weapons. These teams also always have mental health clinicians on-site, who are prepared to offer treatment, not abuse, to emotionally disturbed individuals.

Jayson Tirado was murdered a cop who a Grand Jury refused to even indict

MARCH & RALLY
to Express Outrage at Grand Jury Failure to Indict Detective who Killed JAYSON TIRADO!

On Monday, July 14, 2008 at 3:30pm, The Justice Committee and elected officials will join the fiancé, daughter, family and friends of Jayson Tirado, an unarmed motorist who was shot and killed by off-duty New York City Detective Sean Sawyer last October, in a march from the home Jayson once shared with his family to the office of the Manhattan District Attorney at 1 Hogan Place.

We will express our outrage and indignation over the decision by a grand jury to not indict Detective Sean Sawyer, who fled the scene after murdering Jayson, and the District Attorney's failure to investigate this killing in a timely manner.

When:
Monday, July 14th

Where:

• 3:30pm - Gather to march: 12th Street and Ave D
• 5:00pm - Rally at DA's office: 1 Hogan Place (across the street from the Criminal Courthouse)

We encourage everyone to show their support by marching along side Jayson's family. Those who can't make it to the march please meet us at the DA's office at 5pm.

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Directions to the march location: Take the L, N, R, Q, W, F, 1, 2, 3, A, C, E to 14th Street and transfer onto the M14 C or D bus to 10th Street and Ave D and walk two blocks to 12th Street.

Directions to the DA's office: Take the 4, 5, 6, J, M, or Z to the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall or the N or R to City Hall. Q or W to Canal. Organized by the Justice Committee and the family and friends of Jayson Tirado