Racial Justice Organizations Reject “Secure DC” Omnibus Legislation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts:
Ruby Yearling, Civil Rights Corps
Valerie Wexler, SPTP-DC
press@sptdc.com
Racial Justice Organizations Reject “Secure DC” Omnibus Legislation, Citing Its Focus on Incarceration and Punishment Over Addressing Root Causes of Violence
Organizations urge the DC Council to reject the ineffective and harmful policies in the Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024
Washington (Jan. 17, 2024)—Organizations concerned about racial and economic justice and civil liberties, including Civil Rights Corps, Who Speaks for Me?, Metro DC DSA, ACLU-DC, and Stop Police Terror Project DC, have come together to urge councilmembers to reject the harmful and ineffective provisions of Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s proposed Secure DC omnibus bill, and instead pass policies that promote real safety.
In 2023, Councilmember Pinto, as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety and backed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, introduced numerous pieces of legislation that harken back to the racist and harmful crime bills of the 1990s—bills that did very little to reduce violence but did fuel mass incarceration of Black people. Now, Pinto and the mayor are attempting to rush their own bills through the legislative process by repackaging their legislation into the Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024.
“The Secure DC Omnibus bill will hurt DC residents, exacerbate crime, and make all of us less safe,” said Brittany Francis, Deputy Director of Litigation at Civil Rights Corps. “A single arrest can change the course of a person’s entire life. They then return to their communities with fewer options, yet more trauma and stigma to overcome than they faced at the time of their arrest. This senseless cycle of punishment must stop. The Secure DC Omnibus bill seeks to reduce public oversight over police misconduct, increase the number of legally innocent people who will be locked up, and create more avenues for police to harass and abuse community members. These measures do not, will not, and cannot make us safer.”
“As an organization that is committed to interrupting and dismantling the Trauma-to-Prison Pipeline™️ for women, girls and LGBTQ+ people, Who Speaks For Me? is disturbed and appalled at this emergency crime bill,” said Taylar Nuevelle, Executive Director of Who Speaks for Me? as well as a returning citizen. “Our councilmembers should be spending their energy and our tax dollars on creating alternatives to incarceration, building affordable housing for system-impacted people, and funding employment training and jobs for those most marginalized.”
Community violence and crime are serious problems that vulnerable DC residents have had to live with for decades. But the DC Council has already been provided with solutions to many of these problems. The Council established the DC Police Reform Commission to examine not just how to reduce the harms caused by policing, but how to improve public safety for all DC residents. In 2021, the commission released a comprehensive 259-page report detailing the many evidence-based policies the DC Council could pass to actually prioritize public safety and well-being. And along with the many proposals in the report, DC could be investing in numerous existing programs and providing assistance and resources to underserved communities.
Instead of following the guidance of experts, Councilmember Pinto and the mayor have chosen to inflict more harm on vulnerable DC communities. The omnibus legislation includes harmful provisions that would:
Establish so-called “drug free zones” where police can surveil, search, and arrest people with impunity. This same policy was repealed by the DC Council in 2014 for being potentially unconstitutional (the votes in favor of repeal included then-Councilmember Bowser herself, as well as Chairman Phil Mendelson and Councilmember Anita Bonds).
Expand pre-trial detention resulting in more people being jailed before they are found guilty of a crime.
Roll back basic transparency, including the requirement that MPD’s public disciplinary hearings disclose the name and badge number of the officer being disciplined and the policy that prohibits officers from reviewing body-worn camera footage before writing reports on an incident.
Expand police power by easing restrictions on dangerous car chases and redefining serious use of force to exclude things like causing temporary loss of consciousness or shooting a pet.
Undermine publicly supported legislation that decriminalized fare evasion and repealed the ban on face coverings.
"The lessons of the deaths of George Floyd, Deon Kay, and so many others, the thousands of DC residents saying more policing does not make us safer, all of this seem to have been completely lost on much of the Council," said Valerie Wexler, a core organizer with Stop Police Terror Project DC. "We have 259 pages of evidence-based solutions sitting on councilmembers’ desks. We have community groups and advocacy organizations with detailed plans, just waiting for the political will to put them into action. Instead, Brooke Pinto, backed by the mayor, seems to be only interested in inventing new ways to lock people up. This legislation is not just harmful and ineffective, it's embarrassingly harmful and ineffective."
By assembling last year's bills into one enormous omnibus bill, Councilmember Pinto is also rushing the legislative process and bypassing public input. In fact, there are multiple provisions in the omnibus that were not in any previous bills. DC residents have a right to assess the bill in its entirety, not just some of the pieces it was assembled from, and to a public hearing on the full legislation.
"Bowser, Pinto, and their corporate accomplices are attempting to increase police repression in the District under the false illusion of public safety—at the direct expense of poor, working class, and Black and brown residents," said Metro DC DSA organizer Benjamin Merrick. "They're trying to ram it through the Council via a hyper-racist omnibus bill without a hearing, to avoid the overwhelming public resistance they faced when they introduced last year's crime bills. We know that none of this makes us safer."
“The Council has the power and the responsibility to address the root causes of crime in DC instead of reaching for the same reactionary band-aids that have been failing us for hundreds of years,” said Brittany Francis. “Study after study shows that the way to alleviate interpersonal violence is to give people resources. If everyone in our community were housed, fed, and economically secure, DC would be a much safer city. We all want to alleviate the suffering and fear that is permeating our communities. Now is the time for the Council to choose solutions that actually work.”
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The organizations demanding real public safety solutions instead of throwing DC residents under the "crimnibus" include: ACLU-DC, Stop Police Terror Project DC, Civil Rights Corps, Who Speaks for Me?, and Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America