Abolish Atlanta Police

THE PROBLEM

APD Officer, and GILEE graduate, closed direct access point for Carver High School students. “The closure appears to have been prompted by the complaints of white residents, who do not care for Carver High School students traversing through their neighborhoods.”

Atlanta Police respond to a protest in their militarized gear. The protest took place during the George Floyd Uprising of Summer 2020. (Photo by: @ThatSeanKeenan on Twitter)

Atlanta Public Schools swore in their own police force in 2016, choosing to bring their students in closer proximity of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Atlanta Police Department was called upon to tear down a homeless people encampment, evicting people from their tents and homes. The city has taken similar approaches around town, like in Buckhead and Buford Highway.

Since 2010, at least 25 people have been killed by the Atlanta Police Department.

SAY THEIR NAMES!

Roxanne Taylor.

Maurice Hampton.

Jimmy Allen.

Carulus Hines.

Thomas Truitt.

Christopher Calhoun.

Wayne North.

James Sweatman.

Ernest Barnett.

Lewis Williams.

Alexia Christian.

Darius Smith.

Deravis Caine Rogers.

Deaundre Phillips.

Mitchell Kitchen.

Dashaun Shepard.

Jeremiah Perdue.

D’Ettrick Griffin.

Jimmy Atchison.

Oscar Cain.

Edward Barnett III.

William Simpkins.

Rayshard Brooks.

Ronald Hale.

Reuben Hollis.

THE PLATFORM

1. Shut down all APD precincts and hand the buildings over to the surrounding communities.
   • Make all police abuse records public knowledge immediately. Many officers still active with the Atlanta Police Department have been investigated/reprimanded for their harassment, false imprisonment, and use of force on the people from our communities. Their track records remain hidden behind inadequate sorting systems and open records requests, whether from APD or the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, and ATLiens need to be able to identify killer cops for our safety. We demand access to all police disciplinary records for all closed investigations, delivered through a regularly updated platform.
   • Fire all killer cops and cops with records of abuse immediately. The murderer of Deaundre Phillips, Officer Yasim Abdulahad, remains hidden behind his badge from any tangible justice, as he stands among many other murderous perpetrators of state violence still on the force. We demand the immediate firing of all killer cops and cops with records of abuse. 
   • Stop the construction and funding of all APD precincts immediately. The city has no businesses funding more policing as Atlanta faces a rent crisis; this funding should be used for schools, housing, and community health, NOT police. New precincts, such as the Edgewood mini-precinct and the new Zone 3 APD base being built off of Metropolitan Avenue, seek to make social problems invisible by controlling our movements: don’t protest, don’t loiter, don’t make public art or have public gatherings, don’t be publicly homeless. We demand that these construction projects be terminated and all existing precincts be denied further funding.
   • Terminate the use of undercover officers and end the impunity of off-the-clock officers immediately. Police officers don’t abide by the boundaries of their time sheets, often exerting their state-granted authority and force on unsuspecting people, even when plain clothed. The people in Atlanta should not need to fear possible harassment, surveillance, and subsequent apprehension from those who we do not even realize are cops. We demand the termination of the use of  undercover officers and no special protections for off-duty police officers. 
   • Terminate APD’s Video Integration Center, the hub for over 10,000 publicly and privately owned cameras. Atlanta is the most surveilled city per capita in the United States. Surveillance, at its best, is an extremely expensive response to “crime” that drains public funding away from the severely underfunded economic and social problems that hurt our communities. Surveillance, at its worst, is weaponized to further imbalance the social power dynamics held by who monitors the video. When abused by officers, police cameras have been used to target and discriminate against black people or as a branch of intimate partner stalking and sexual violence. We demand the dismantling of the Video Integration Center, whose existence implies that our society should be denied privacy and autonomy from the state.
2. Reparations for all victims of police violence and their families.
   While no amount of material support can bring back our dead, the death of a loved one brings financial hardship for all, and unexpected death at the hands of the cops brings not only financial hardship, but emotional trauma. Since the City of Atlanta continues to choose to fund the police department, they are directly responsible for deaths at the hands of their cops. We demand reparations for all victims of police violence and the families of those killed at the hands of the police in the form of direct payments to victims or their families. 
3. Clemency for all protesters who mobilized against police violence after the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and other victims of this police state.                                  Over the past several months, people again have been forced to fight back against policing, state violence, and systemic racism. The fight has been ugly. Faced with protesters carrying signs, water bottles, and the occasional rock, the state fights back with the full weight of its force: “less lethal” ammunition, tanks, automatic weapons, tear gas, and other chemical weapons. Protesters have been maimed, beaten, kidnapped, and thrown in jail. Some still linger in jail, stuck to face down the worst aspects of the very systems they are fighting against. The police are disturbing the peace. The police are violent. We are only trying to survive. We demand the City of Atlanta and metro Atlanta courts drop all charges related to protesting, rioting, looting, or disturbing the peace.