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Weekly Update – January 27, 2023

Greetings friends! Here’s what we’ve been up to:

On Tuesday (1/24), the Coalition mobilized community members against the Public Safety Committee’s vote on the acquisition of a Boston Dynamics “Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle” (QUGV) or Robot Surveillance Dog. The Committee allowed only 40 public comments to be made and 39 opposed the acquisition of the Robot Surveillance Dog. This didn’t stop the committee (four of which had received substantial sums of money from the LAPPL) from approving the donation. The fight continues in City Hall where the council in large will vote on the donation.

That evening Tiff led our monthly Data Driven Policing monthly community meeting where we talked about the SARA reports we received for Skid Row. SARA is a purported problem oriented policing method that stands for Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment. Coalition member Cris showed participants a visualization of the SARA zones he created on a map.

On Wednesday (1/25) the War on Youth work group continued our residency at Stem to the Future. Students have been working toward organizing and drawing attention to a specific community issue they want to address. Their focus has been a lack of resources in schools. This week, students conducted a journaling exercise and talked about the real life impact of a lack of resources in schools. Students listed some of the ways they have seen this issue manifest itself in their schools.

On Thursday’s (1/26) episode of Radio Insurrection on KPFK, Hamid Khan interviewed Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia. They discussed the city budget, the constant waste of resources on policing, and what the future holds for the controller’s office. The conversation concluded with Mejia answering questions from community members who called into the station.

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.