"But despite your reading list, your actions, and those of your office, indicate you are more devoted to order than to justice. Police departments throughout our state are enforcing a brutal and too often fatal negative peace. You are part of a devastating absence of justice. You claim to support our goals, but ignore our community driven methods, even when evidence is on our side."
New Jersey OAG, what will be your legacy?
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"So, what can I do? What can you do, White people?

I believe we have to struggle against the inhumane racialized policing that is to keep you safe and me safe, because our safety as white people is not, and never should be, at the expense of our Black neighbors.

There continue to be more calls for total abolition: a world without police. But no matter where you fall on that spectrum, it's essential to understand your experience with policing, which is always racialized and depends, first and foremost, on the color of your skin. From there, I encourage you to join me in rethinking where you stand on policing. It's a journey, not a destination, but we can't pretend to be on the right side of something that, from its roots to its modern-day representation, is racist."

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

https://www.publicsq.org/opinion/0wbtoo62u12r0nnacp9tc8xhb2k13o

"From these origins, it shouldn't be surprising that many police officers not only declined to intervene in the lynchings and Klan violence from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and into the Civil Rights Era, but were active participants.

But make no mistake; lynchings are still with us—often done under the auspices of the state and now captured in HD, happening with a far too regular cadence. The revolution will not be televised, but the police lynchings will. And policing in the 2020s looks very much like it did in the 1820s and the 1960s."

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

https://www.publicsq.org/opinion/0wbtoo62u12r0nnacp9tc8xhb2k13o

My public comment from the June 13 Englewood Council Meeting.
"It was less than 60 seconds between when they first saw Bernard, until the time he is fatally shot by Officer Sharpe.
60 seconds where he is alone in his room, a threat to no one.
60 seconds where there is only screaming by officers at Bernard, escalating the situation. No one speaks to him as a human being nor tries to calm the situation, to resolve it peacefully."

#Justice4Bernard #JusticeForBernardPlacide
https://manywords.substack.com/p/justice4bernard-englewood-council

"These are not my ideas. I am not an expert in this space. But I am a human being and I can see, hear, and feel the anguish of my neighbors. Maybe you will hear me because I look like you, white and male. I can put on the formal trappings of a suit and tie and look like you, not out of place in your spaces. I look like the white men that sit behind the dais at State of the State Addresses, year, after year, after year. I look like the white male trifecta that has ruled our state since its founding, with only rare deviation, no matter how out of touch with our state that wall to wall whiteness may be. Maybe these words will reach you in a way that Dr. King's have not after all this time."

AG Platkin, what will be your legacy?

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"These are not my ideas. I am not an expert in this space. But I am a human being and I can see, hear, and feel the anguish of my neighbors. Maybe you will hear me because I look like you, white and male. I can put on the formal trappings of a suit and tie and look like you, not out of place in your spaces. I look like the white men that sit behind the dais at State of the State Addresses, year, after year, after year. I look like the white male trifecta that has ruled our state since its founding, with only rare deviation, no matter how out of touch with our state that wall to wall whiteness may be. Maybe these words will reach you in a way that Dr. King's have not after all this time."

AG Platkin, what will be your legacy?

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"Because what has decades of increasing police funding bought us in Paterson? More police violence against residents. Countless cases citing abuse of residents while hiding behind a badge and a gun. All of which causes more distrust of the police, making investigations less effective. That ineffectiveness is then used to call for more police funding. A self-justifying cycle that never yields an answer except more funding for the police. Much of that police funding goes to superiors who have failed to address the actions and culture of the officers under their command, if they have even bothered to try. Honestly, I am not sure which is the worse explanation for this behavior: that they simply do not care or that this represents their best efforts."

AG Platkin, what will be your legacy?

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"Will you support the police accountability and reform bills that have been stalled for far too long?

A1515 to establish strong Civilian Complaint Review Boards, with subpoena and concurrent investigatory powers, following the blueprint provided by the 2020 NJ State Supreme Court decision?

A5326 to expand the community based violence, substance, and mental health responses that we see working in Paterson, Newark, and Trenton?

A1006 to end Qualified Immunity?

A996 to end the practice of police discipline records being hidden from the public?"

AG Platkin, what will be your legacy?
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"These are not my ideas. I am not an expert in this space. But I am a human being and I can see, hear, and feel the anguish of my neighbors. Maybe you will hear me because I look like you, white and male. I can put on the formal trappings of a suit and tie and look like you, not out of place in your spaces. I look like the white men that sit behind the dais at State of the State Addresses, year, after year, after year. I look like the white male trifecta that has ruled our state since its founding, with only rare deviation, no matter how out of touch with our state that wall to wall whiteness may be. Maybe these words will reach you in a way that Dr. King's have not after all this time."
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew

"The racialized policing we see perpetrated on our most vulnerable neighbors looks nothing like the police and courtroom dramas we may like to binge-watch. When have armed, un-uniformed men jumped out of a car and ran at you, guns pointed just due to the color of your skin? That those men could be police is likely inconvincible to many of you reading this as it was to me a few years ago. But Carl Dorsey is dead, and Justin Rodwell was detained for over a year in Essex County Jail from this style of policing in Newark, to name one city. Racialized consequences of policing don't happen to White people."
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://www.publicsq.org/opinion/0wbtoo62u12r0nnacp9tc8xhb2k13o

"Imagine one of those officers approaches you, still screaming, now pointing their gun at you at close range. And your body still won’t do anything your brain tells it to do, you’re frozen, you can’t comply even if you put every ounce of mental effort into doing what they’re screaming at you to do.

Bang."
https://manywords.substack.com/p/justice4bernard-englewood-council

#Justice4Bernard #JusticeForBernardPlacide

"Because what has decades of increasing police funding bought us in Paterson? More police violence against residents. Countless cases citing abuse of residents while hiding behind a badge and a gun. All of which causes more distrust of the police, making investigations less effective. That ineffectiveness is then used to call for more police funding. A self-justifying cycle that never yields an answer except more funding for the police. Much of that police funding goes to superiors who have failed to address the actions and culture of the officers under their command, if they have even bothered to try. Honestly, I am not sure which is the worse explanation for this behavior: that they simply do not care or that this represents their best efforts." https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

"Paterson doesn't want ARRIVE Together, they have proven, more successful models built by Paterson Healing Collective and St. Joseph's. Will you force ARRIVE on them? Do you really believe a cop with an iPad represents any kind of meaningful change, any kind of safety for a Black man suffering from a mental health crisis?"
https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

"... I get that this is hard for my fellow white folks; I really do. I still feel a quick jolt of relief or safety when I see a police presence; honestly, that may never go away. But then reality kicks in. I'm here to tell you we can force ourselves to reckon with the fact that while our feelings of safety and protection, our most basic human inclinations, may revolve around the police, that same system inspires fear, distrust, violence, and pain, not a few neighborhoods away, but in the homes of our Black neighbors."

#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

https://www.publicsq.org/opinion/0wbtoo62u12r0nnacp9tc8xhb2k13o

On Juneteenth, Union troops, many of them Black, arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the two-year-old proclamation freeing the enslaved. We may not necessarily descend from those white slave owners, but our racist system of policing does, and it's on us to change that.

"But make no mistake; lynchings are still with us—often done under the auspices of the state and now captured in HD, happening with a far too regular cadence. The revolution will not be televised, but the police lynchings will. And policing in the 2020s looks very much like it did in the 1820s and the 1960s. ..."
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://www.publicsq.org/opinion/0wbtoo62u12r0nnacp9tc8xhb2k13o

Attorney General Platkin, will you support the police accountability and reform bills that have been stalled for far too long?

A1515 to establish strong Civilian Complaint Review Boards, with subpoena and concurrent investigatory powers, following the blueprint provided by the 2020 NJ State Supreme Court decision?

A5326 to expand the community based violence, substance, and mental health responses that we see working in Paterson, Newark, and Trenton?

A1006 to end Qualified Immunity?

A996 to end the practice of police discipline records being hidden from the public?

What will be your legacy?

https://manywords.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-attorney-general-matthew
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee

My public comment from the Englewood Council Meeting on Tuesday. #Justice4Bernard #JusticeForBernardPlacide

"Your police officers screamed profanity at him and screamed they would kill him.
Then they tased him.
And while he was unable to comply because he was still being tased, your police officer murdered him."
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
tinyurl.com/2p8wcjpj

Bernard Placide, Jr’s murder by Englewood police hasn’t gotten the same local and national media attention that Najee Seabrooks' murder by Paterson police did.
But that doesn’t mean that Bernard didn't matter.
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee tinyurl.com/2p8wcjpj

"Your police officers screamed profanity at him and screamed they would kill him.
Then they tased him.
And while he was unable to comply because he was still being tased, your police officer murdered him."
#Justice4Bernard #Justice4Najee
https://manywords.substack.com/p/public-comment-englewood-council