General Meeting Summary
This past Tuesday, November 19th, the Coalition held its general meeting at Los Angeles Community Action Network.
Coalition member Hamid Khan presented on the history of intelligence led policing, exposing the connections between predictive policing tactics that include information collection and SAR.
Also discussed was the Human Relations Commission hearings on SAR, Gang Injunctions and other profiling issues. While we thank the HRC for supporting public forums/hearings across the city, we need to be vigilant and make sure these are actual hearings that can hold the Los Angeles Police Department and others accountable to the public they claim to serve.
The Coalition will be sharing our proposal for the type of hearings our community needs and deserves. Stay tuned!
Neighborhood Council Outreach
This week, Coalition Member Esteban Gil was at the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council and spoke about our work, including outlining what the SAR program is and how it encourages racial profiling and is based on junk-science which produces useless and irrelevant data, criminalizes our communities, and wastes our resources.
If you live in Echo Park, you are encouraged to join the public safety committee to push the council to come out against SAR and support the L.A. Human Relations Commission’s (HRC) hearings on SAR, Gang Injunctions and other profiling issues.
Coalition member Jaime Garcia presented at the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council, discussing the HRC hearings on the SARs Initiative and Special Order 1. SARs and Special Order 1 was broken down into parts so the audience understood how Special Order 1 violated civil and human rights, creates a culture of suspicion, is ineffective and wastes resources, based on junk science, and encourages racial profiling. Our work has been sent to the public safety, housing and transportation committee for further vetting with the prospects of a motion for or against SARs to be passed in December.
On Thursday evening coalition members and local community residents Mariella Saba and Betty Hung spoke at the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council meeting. Building upon the decision by HRC to hold public forums/hearings on SAR, Mariella and Betty asserted the need for the Neighborhood Council to invite the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition to make a thorough presentation to the council and local community, and for the council to ensure maximum participation of the Lincoln Heights community in the hearing process. The council suggested the coalition to meet with the council’s program and services committee in December to agendize a presentation to the full council. The coalition plans to attend the committee meeting on December 17th.
1st Unitarian Church Presentation
On Sunday November 17th, coalition members Ken Montenegro and Hamid Khan presented at the First Unitarian Church in Koreatown. The church has a unique history in Los Angeles with a predominantly Central American membership with several members through their lives having been engaged in liberation struggles and resistance against military juntas and paramilitary death squads financed and supported by the United States government. Several members drew parallels between their experience of dealing with surveillance and spying, and the gross abuse of power inherent in LAPD Suspicious Activity Reporting programs.
Sunday’s presentation to the larger membership was a follow up to the Church’s board decision in August to support the campaign to rescind Special Order 1. First Unitarian Church is also the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NSA.
Other Outreach
The Outreach team including members Jojo, Yewon and Esteban also tabled at the Revolutionary Autonomous Community last Sunday. Jojo a very dedicated outreach team member organized for Stop LAPD Spying table to be present at this great event.
Our Next Meeting
December 17, 2013 at 6:30pm at the Downtown UCLA Labor Center located at 675 S. Parkview Ave., LA 90057 across from MacArthur Park.