Sign: we will not stop until we #Defund The Police.
If your organization would like to sign on to this statement in the wake of City Council's budget amendments to the Philadelphia Police budget, please read below and sign on the form below.

***For individuals: send a letter directly to Mayor Kenney and Managing Director Abernathy here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/defund-the-police ***



No, that is not what we meant by “Defund the police.”

Wednesday night after 11pm, City Council voted to approve an amendment to the City of Philadelphia’s budget - one that looked, on the surface, to reduce funding to the Philadelphia Police, the most lavishly funded department in the city, by $33 million dollars.  

But if you look closely, the vast majority of those cuts are just revoking the proposed increase for the department of $19 million dollars, put forward by Mayor Kenney in May, and moving crossing guards and traffic enforcement officers to the Managing Director’s office.

This is not #DefundThePolice. This is collusion between the Mayor’s Office and the Fraternal Order of Police.  Council and the Mayor have been pressured to do something in response to the tens of thousands of Philadelphians on our streets for the past three weeks - the vibrant, visionary and united movement we are seeing across Philadelphia and around the world. Yet at a time of unimaginable austerity for Black and brown communities, this kind of shell game with our resources is an insult.  Not increasing the police budget isn’t enough.

This proposed police budget does nothing to invest winding down how armed officers disrupt our communities.  It does nothing to replace police with community-based crisis support that would prevent deaths, and lives lost to criminalization and mass incarceration. It does nothing to actually empower our community to have real oversight and increase transparency. It just reveals budget accounting tricks - we are not fooled.

Mayor Kenney and Managing Director Abernathy should be ashamed. We are done with the power that FOP chief John McNesby and the FOP have over this city.  Before this budget is passed, we will continue to demand that Kenney and Abernathy cut the police budget by $120 million and #defundthepolice.

The seeds of community-based visions of safety have always existed in our families and neighborhoods.  But over the next year, and as we approach the next budget season and the next Fraternal Order of Police contract, we know that making these visions clear, concrete, and grounded, and defining exactly what community safety looks like in our city, is our task and responsibility.

Over the next weeks, months, and years, our tasks will be to dig deep with our communities to craft what solutions to community harm and violence look like without the police, and to continue pressure this fall and in the next budget season to reinvest money from policing into the community resources Black and brown neighborhoods need to be safe and whole.  We will fight to make sure no federal dollars go to shore up policing, prisons, or prosecution in our city.  We will fight to make sure that departments which surveil our people and militarize our communities can’t sneak a budget transfer in this fall.

The rage in the streets will not abate until policing is a thing of the past. The changes we see tonight show that our voices have power, but we must continue to push for a vision where we can respond to crisis and needs without armed officers in our streets and homes. We will not stop until we #defundthepolice.


Supported by:
ACT UP Philadelphia
Almanac Dance Circus Theatre
Amistad Law Project
Applied Mechanics
Asian Americans United
BARWE (Building Anti Racist White Educators)  
Books Through Bars
Caucus of Working Educators
Civil Rights Corps
Color of Change
D.I.V.A.S Ministry Group Non-Profit Organization
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
Fossil Free Penn
Free Migration Project
Human Rights Coalition
in.site collaborative
Indivisible Philadelphia
Istmo y Vos
JLUSA (CLOSEthecreek)
Juntos
Just Community Energy Transition Project
La Defensa
Lilac
Lost + Found Touring
Mijente
Movement Alliance Project
New Sanctuary Movement
PA Debt Collective
Penn Association for Gender Equity
Penn for Immigrant Rights
Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition
Pennsylvania Working Families Party
Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance
Philadelphia Climate Works
Philadelphia Community Bail Fund
Philadelphia Drivers Union
Philadelphia Jobs With Justice
Philadelphia Municipal Workers United/ Campaign for a Just Budget
Philadelphia Red Umbrella Alliance
Philly Childcare Collective
Philly Neighborhood Networks
Philly Participatory Research Collective (PPRC)
Philly Power Research
Philly Socialists
Philly Transit Riders Union
POWER LIVE FREE Philly
Reclaim Philadelphia
Rock to the Future
Rose Hill Consulting Co.
Stadium Stompers
Sunrise Movement Philadelphia
Teacher Action Group Philadelphia
The Center for Carceral Communities
The Penn Student Labor Action Project
Tikkun Olam Chavurah
U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Up Against The Law Legal Collective
VietLead
We Evolve
Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project

Sign in to Google to save your progress. Learn more
Your name *
Your organization (if applicable) - If you are not signing on as an organization, send a letter directly to the Mayor and Brian Abernathy here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/defund-the-police
Do you have authority to sign for your organization?
Clear selection
Your email address *
Submit
Clear form
Never submit passwords through Google Forms.
This form was created inside of People's Tech Project. Report Abuse