Dear friends, check out some of the work we have been doing!
On Saturday (4/2) the Coalition’s SARA Work Group met with Echo Park Lake community members to review our findings about the SARA program and to better develop an effective outreach plan to build power among those who felt the brunt of police violence during last year’s sweep. The group is working toward a larger outreach event, to solicit information that would serve to counter LAPD’s false narratives that seek to legitimize their violence and to learn more about LAPD surveillance tactics to better dismantle the police state. Stay tuned for more details on this event.
On Sunday (4/3) the Coalition stood in solidarity with Streetwatch LA and the unhoused community on Aetna Street in Van Nuys, during Aetnapalooza. Aetnapalooza was a day by and for the unhoused community that included art-making, food and housing workshops. The event featured powerful speeches by people like General Dogon, fight back organizer for the LA CAN and Theo Henderson of We the Unhoused. The community held this event in an effort to build power ahead of a sweep later in the week under the new LA City Municipal Code 41.18. The Coalition discussed the history of criminalization 41.18 follows and highlighted the settler-colonial strategy of criminalizing the land beneath us, along with our strategy of fighting back through collective research.
On Tuesday (4/5) we held our monthly Gender and Sexuality Webinar, where Mariella led us in a conversation about recent legislations across the country that targets trans youth. Ni then led the group in a reflection centered around the questions “How have we internalized settler logics of gender and sexuality? How does the community police gender and sexuality” The group then collectively reflected on how we are centering queer and trans people within our movement of abolition? The Gender and Sexuality WG then provided a recap of their collaborative work with USPROS and SWOP-LA to debunk LAPD claims of sex trafficking and highlight the targeting of poor sex workers during the Super Bowl. An area of focus for the Coalition has been the usage of Cellebrite surveillance technology by the LAPD to gather cellphone information.
On Wednesday (4/6) the Coalition was featured in a presentation by the Ethnic Studies department of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The event, hosted by Dr. Monisha Das Gupta, was a presentation on the Coalition’s history, our findings in the report Automating Banishment, the utilization of art in our movement building, and our strategy of collective learning and research. The discussion also featured contributions from organizers local to Hawaii, Kalani Young and Tina Grandinetti, who tied the Coalition’s work and findings to their fight at home. We also got to hear from Dr. Richard Rath who shared their findings about BIDs in Hawaii, and they enforce banishment of local community members. We’re so grateful that the Ethnic Studies Department of the U of H Manoa created a nurturing space for such an important conversation. We look forward to learning more from our comrades to the west.
To plug in with any of the work groups listed above, or for more information about the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, email us at stoplapdspying@gmail.com.
If you or your organization are interested in hosting a teach-in or discussion regarding our report please fill out this google form.