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Weekly Update – February 24, 2023

Greetings, here’s what we’ve been up to:

On Sunday (2/19), the Coalition presented a workshop entitled “Abolition: History and Practice” at the National Students for Justice in Palestine convening in UCLA. The Coalition kicked off the workshop with a conversation on how abolition informs and leads our goals, tactics, and practices within the work of dismantling policing. We highlighted how this includes us organizing against police reforms. We also discussed how the fight for Black liberation and the fight against anti-Blackness is paramount in ensuring that our work is truly dismantling oppressive systems and not replicating them. We tied our local fight to national and global struggles connected to our work dismantling the LAPD.

On Tuesday (2/21) the Coalition held our monthly in-person general meeting. This month we held a Public Records Clinic. The Coalition shared information about how the California Public Records Act (CPRA) can be used to gain information about public entities. Hamid shared information about our history with CPRA’s and the mechanics of how to file a request. We then collectively drafted a sample public records request to the LAPD. At the conclusion of the workshop we provided a sneak peek of a new Watch the Watchers website we will be releasing soon.

On Wednesday (2/22), the War on Youth workgroup continued our residency with youth at Stem to the Future. This week we discussed the fight to establish Black History Month and the history of the Black Panther Party. Students read the Black Panther Party’s ten-point plan and drafted their own five-point plan.

On Friday (2/24) we were invited to speak to a group of brilliant 10th graders at Fairfax High School about Black History month and the history of surveillance in this country. After receiving a little bit of background about the coalition youth engaged in a lively and substantial conversation about what the abolition of policing means. The conversation was organized by the Fairfax High School Peace Club and Chris of the LA CAN Civil and Human Rights Committee.

To plug in with any of the work groups listed above, or for more information about the Stop
LAPD Spying Coalition, email us at [email protected].

If you or your organization are interested in hosting a teach-in or discussion regarding our report, Automating Banishment, please fill out this google form.