The Texas Organizing Project (TOP) today is amplifying its calls to Dallas city leaders to pass a city budget that reallocates funds away from the police department toward programs that heal and build up marginalized communities. Dallas City Council members will take their final vote on the city budget today.
“An underlying problem with policing is the broadening of officers’ scope, presence, and responsibilities over decades that has led to the normalization of brutality and killing of Black men and women,” said David Villalobos, TOP Right2Justice coordinator. “The Dallas community has demanded transformational change to policing in the streets and at City Hall. Council members have an opportunity to be on the right side of history today by passing a budget that divests from policing and invests more in programs that will strengthen our communities.”
Despite decades of work by advocates to put a stop to police violence and address the systemic racism in our policing and justice systems, police violence continues, as seen most recently in the Dallas Police Department’s response to the protests against police brutality this summer. It’s clear we need bold, new approaches to end police brutality while making our communities safer.
“Decades of ramped up policing has made the US the most incarcerated country in the world, yet people across the city and in my neighborhood still don’t feel safe. What we are doing is not working,” said Flordeisha Moore, a TOP member from Dallas. “I’ve seen firsthand how over-policing disrupts the lives of Black and Latino families, making it harder for people to find jobs, secure housing, and have other basic needs met.”
TOP members will be following the meeting online, and today’s vote will resonate at the ballot box.
“We will hold City Council members accountable for how they vote today,” Moore said. “Today is not the end of this fight. We’re just getting started.”
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Texas Organizing Project organizes Black and Latino communities in Dallas, Harris and Bexar counties with the goal of transforming Texas into a state where working people of color have the power and representation they deserve. For more information, visit organizetexas.org.
This press release was sent out September 24, 2020.