By Daphne Ho
LOS ANGELES, CA – The ACLU SoCal posted a thread on Twitter this past week strongly criticizing the nation’s police with reference to the police killings of Keenan Anderson, Tyre Nichols, Tyre Smith and Anthony Lowe in 2023.
The ACLU SoCal wrote, “While we demand justice for Keenan Anderson, Anthony Lowe, Tyre Nichols, Oscar Leon Sanchez, Takar Smith and others killed by police, we must remember justice does nothing for the dead. Justice is what we seek for the living: their families, communities, our collective whole.”
And they added, “This animosity sanctions, if not encourages, the mistreatment that Black communities experience in every facet of our society including all of our chosen responses to their emergent needs, from our schools to the criminal legal system, to our system of family policing and beyond.”
Hector Villagra, the executive officer of ACLU SoCal, added, “If justice means anything, it should be creating a world that cares for the living and prevents yet another person’s life being so violently and so callously taken. We must promise that it will not happen again. And we must make good on the promise.”
The ACLU warned, “While these harms are not limited to law enforcement, they will not end until law enforcement no longer has the tools and authority to inflict violence on Black people. Any contact with police carries the threat of serious injury or death, even for those who seek them out.”
Finally, in the ACLU SoCal’s Twitter feed, the group noted, “The most effective solution is to remove authority and access police have over our communities — including shifting responsibility to respond to our real public health and safety needs to those who can do so unarmed and in a manner driven by our needs, not a desire to use force.”
The ACLU joined the call “to remove police from traffic enforcement, schools and mental health.”
