By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) has weighed into the Trump Administration’s dictatorial deployment of National Guard troops in Washington D.C. calling it a “troubling overreach that ignores the facts and undermines our democracy.”
CPE, like many others, stated that Trump is lying about a supposed “crime emergency” in D.C.
They note that “Crime in Washington, D.C. is not spiraling up. It is trending down...in spite of receding crime—no community is safe from becoming a target of political convenience. Authoritarian regimes do not emerge fully formed—they are built incrementally, under the guise of “law and order,” until dissent is met with force rather than debate. Let’s be clear: this unprecedented action is not about public safety. Crime in D.C. has fallen sharply — dropping 26% this year after hitting a 30-year low last year. The data dismantles the fear-based narrative used to justify this federal power grab.”
CPE also reminds us that Trump is targeting vulnerable and Black Communities.
CPE states “this takeover weaponizes law enforcement against vulnerable communities, scapegoating unhoused people — nearly half of whom are Black — and militarizing the streets of a city that has no voting representation in Congress. It treats human beings in need of housing and services as enemies to be ‘removed’ rather than neighbors to be supported. This is the politics of division and domination, not safety and care…Importantly, this unnecessary infection of public safety with political opportunism is a continuation of attempts to highjack locally elected institutions—disproportionately circumventing the will of Black and Brown communities.”
CPE is calling for “loud bi-partisan opposition” and warns that American democracy is in jeopardy.
“This decision must be met with loud, bipartisan opposition. We call on the leadership of the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C.’s council members, as well as mayors and governors across the country, members of Congress, and everyone who values democratic norms to reject this action. Unchecked policing authority imposed by political whim is incompatible with a free society. If we do not challenge this precedent now, we may find ourselves powerless to stop the next. Public safety cannot come at the expense of democracy. A democracy that trades away its freedoms for force will soon have neither.”
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