Communities United Against Police Brutality

Mental health and policing:we provided more than two dozen presentations on travis' law to agencies across the state and tabled at several events to inform the public of their rights under travis' law. We drafted a bill called brent's law to provide training in mental health crisis to 911 dispatchers and give families the right to pursue a private cause of action if travis' law isn't followed. We drafted the larry r. Hill medical reform act to improve medical and mental health care for inmates in the jails.

Consent decree:we worked extensively with the us department of justice to shape the requirements of the proposed consent decree, especially in the areas of accountability, off duty work and city response to mental health crisis calls. We researched and shared with the community information on the groups vying to be the independent monitor and hosted sessions for the community to and our coalition partners to meet with representatives of the groups. When the first bidding process did not bring forward appropriate candidates, we worked with the doj to get the process reopened. We continued our work on the mdhr consent decree, analyzing and providing written feedback on use of force policies and other policies.

-served on the post board rules advisory committee crafting educational requirements for individuals entering law enforcement and for continuing education.-ongoing hotline/advocacy: we continue to operate a 24-hour hotline for police brutality reports and provide advocacy and assistance to individuals and families impacted by police violence and criminal legal system violence.-we provided internship opportunities to 34 students from the university of minnesota and 3 from university of st. Thomas. Received a statewide award for our work with students.-tracked and provided data to media and public officials on the costs of lawsuits related to ptsd settlements.-researched data and presented to the minneapolis city council in opposition to their plan to increase police salaries by 21.7%.-presented to brooklyn center city council on implementation of an expanded response network-we worked in coalition with numerous organizations to address police conduct during encampment evictions.-arranged for legal defense of several activists.-legal and political defense of a whistleblower police officer.-held several know your rights trainings in transitional housing units, drug rehab facilities, schools, food shelves and other locations as well as virtually, reaching over 300 people.-tabled at multiple events to educate the community on the issues and on their rights, reaching thousands of people.-developed the linda tirado scholarship to honor photojournalist linda tirado, whose eye was shot out during the uprising after the murder of george floyd and who is dying due to the brain injury she sustained in that attack.