The Thing We Need Just as Much as Charges Against the Officers

An open letter to city and state leaders

(I sent the following letter to 3 Louisiana mayors and the state governor. I plan to send it to more later but I ask each of you to do the same, even if you send it to the same people. They need to hear this or else, more of us will die.

That’s not exaggeration. It’s a fact.)

Sending you comfort and support as we face this particularly contentious and stressful time for our state.

I’ll keep this brief. Regarding the issues of over-policing and police brutality:

we need immediate reform of policing policy and practices.

Officers are given far too much leeway at deciding to draw and use their weapons, to apply force, and the way most of these abuses begin is the far too open-ended subjectively stated policies that they use to first engage with a person in the community.

For example, Javon Rakestrau in 2010 was stopped while walking from his home to his mother’s. There was never any reason to stop him and question him, but because of the neighborhood he lived in Lafayette, LA, the officer knew he could get away with it and based on the language in existing policy, he could claim he had…