May 2022 Newsletter
Greetings friends and supporters,
We hope this message finds you as well as possible! You are receiving this because you signed our petition and/or indicated you want to continue hearing from New Orleans for Community Oversight of the Police (NOCOP).
As of right now, we have a little over 100 signatures on our petition for the formation of a Community Police Accountability Council (CPAC) in New Orleans. In the past month, we have held multiple events to keep building our petition campaign for a CPAC. Here are a couple photos and descriptions of what we've been up to:
On April 9, we held an open meeting at the gardens of 2111 Dumaine St. We talked about the continued lack of accountability by the Louisiana State Police and their occupation of New Orleans at the behest of the city council. We started making plans to have a speakout on April 25.
Then, on April 25, we hosted said speakout at the intersection of Ursulines and Claiborne––though we ended up at Esplanade and Claiborne out of respect for neighbors. We spoke out for justice for Ronald Greene and in solidarity with Minneapolis in their struggle to get justice for Amir Locke. We say state police off our streets! Keep the consent decree! Community control of the police NOW!!
We are reading a book called 'Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African American Activism from World War II to Hurricane Katrina' together. This book details so much history of the corrupt NOPD and Black resistance to it. It is teaching us so much about the history of struggle against the police here in New Orleans and helps us learn from the past. If you are interested in joining the group for that, please get in touch.
Tomorrow on May 7th, Join us at the rally for the "Rally for the Right to Abortion". We will be demonstrating alongside a coalition of organizations to demand that New Orleans be a sanctuary for abortions. We demand that the Mayor, DA, and local hospitals not enforce or cooperate with the enforcement of anti-abortion laws. We demand Louisiana State Police out of New Orleans.
We continue to have meetings nearly every Saturday afternoon. Please stay posted for specific details about any upcoming meetings. We hope you can join us in the work, either through coming to meetings, sending the petition (link below) to your people, or sending a couple dollars to our venmo @NOCOP to help offset printing and supply costs.
Yours in Struggle,
New Orleans for Community Oversight of the Police