Greetings friends! The Coalition has not slowed down as the year ends. Check out what we have been up to!
On Sunday (12/12) LA CAN held its 2021 Freedom Now Awards! As many of you know LA CAN is Stop LAPD Spying Coalition’s home, so were proud to be featured in this year’s “LIVE” event! Shakeer and Nina shared how the Coalition continues to combat the LAPD’s development and implementation of Data Driven Policing methods. They also uplifted how law enforcement has been working in tandem with land developers to facilitate the banishment of community members. Please support LA CAN to continue the crucial work we do in Skid Row and throughout Los Angeles. To donate to LA CAN, log on to cangress.org and click the DONATE button.
You can also donate directly to the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition at stoplapdspying.org/donate .
Please check out this fundraising call the Coalition released this week highlighting our ten year anniversary in this struggle!
On Monday (12/13) the Coalition hosted a Watch the Watchers presentation during the Street Watch meeting at LACAN. The Coalition highlighted how group-based research driven by our lived experiences unveils more about policing tactics and operational strategy then traditional cop-watching. The Coalition and Streetwatch members in attendance dissected the SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) docs that we recently received and discussed what they exposed LAPD’s operational strategy preceding violent sweeps like the one we saw at Echo Park in March 2021.
Some of these same Streetwatch members in attendance joined us for our first hybrid Work Group meeting for the SARA docs on Wednesday (12/15). Tiff led the group through various documents and attendees provided their lived experiences to counter the narratives put forward by the LAPD. The group began discussing strategies around how to best utilize these documents for developing educational materials and discussing what other PRA’s we could submit to gain more information. Email us at stoplapdspying@gmail.com if you would like to join this effort.
Tuesday’s (12/14) War on Youth Webinar discussed the appropriation of Public Health frameworks in the targeting of “violent extremism.” Much of the discussion was centered around continued attempts by academics to use mental health practitioners to medicalize extremism and pathologize dissent. We also gave an update on the current fight against the LAPD’s attempt to receive a $250K Targeted Violence Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) grant.
The War on Youth Work Group met on Wednesday (12/15) to develop immediate strategies around the LAPD’s TVTP grant, and the continued development of popular education materials around programs like TVTP. Email us at stoplapdspying@gmail.com if you would like to join this fight!
On Friday, Cris, who built the incredible automatingbanishment.org website and interactive map, led our first ever Mapping Work Group meeting. In developing the interactive map for Automating Banishment, Cris used the Coalition’s research around LASER zones and anchor points to create a visual representation of the LAPD’s kill zones. The Work Group’s conversation encompassed exploring different formats and functions mapping can take, and how to best bring this process to community members who would best inform its content. We are excited about continuing this mapping process. Please contact us if you are interested in joining the Mapping group.
The Coalition was pleased to celebrate the end of the year with our family at LA CAN. We look forward to another year of beautiful struggle in our home here in Skid Row!
As announced in last week’s recap the Coalition will be kicking off its Automating Banishment Online Collective Learning series on Tuesday December 21st! Check out the fliers below for more information on the schedule for online and in-person reading groups! And if you have not already, log on to automatingbanishment.org to read our report! Please go to https://stoplapdspying.org to get zoom info for Dec 21st online conversation.
If you or your organization are interested in hosting a teach-in or discussion regarding our report please fill out this google form.