Care Not Cops Berkeley is a Network of Care Providers, Outreach Workers and
Social Justice Organizations
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We want community based solutions. This means properly funded community agencies, community programs and social services rooted in the communities they serve.
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We want a fully funded mental health and mobile crisis program with an absolute minimum of police involvement as possible.
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We want to reduce harm and violence in Berkeley. Policing is an extension of violence and harm. We support systemic changes which truly support the health and safety of all in Berkeley.
It is time for Berkeley to invest in the
PEOPLE not POLICE!
We need a "Specialized Care Unit" now
Read the SCU Demands in Detail:
Why Care not Cops?
Kayla Moore was killed by the Berkeley Police in her own home during a "wellness check" in 2013 when she was experiencing a mental health crisis. The abuse and murder of people living with mental health disabilities at the hands of the police is tragic and commonplace. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, individuals with untreated severe mental illness are involved in at least 1 in 4 and as many as half of all fatal police shootings.
According to the 2015 Annual Homeless Housing Report 45% of those that were unhoused identified with having a mental illness, and 25% were seriously mentally ill. Here in Berkeley 57% of our unhoused community identify as Black or African-American. So Care not Cops is about equity. It is about race. It is about healing trauma and erasing stigma. And most certainly it is about stopping the police from being first responders to a community they antagonize and harass on a daily basis. We must end the criminalization and killing of Black people, people of color, Indigenous people, unhoused people and people with mental health disabilities at the hands of the police.
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CARE NOT COPS BERKELEY is Berkeley Community Safety Coalition, Berkeley Copwatch, Berkeley Tenants’ Union, Cops Off Campus, Friends of Adeline, Latinos Unidos de Berkeley, South Berkeley Mutual Aid Project, The Suitcase Clinic, Where Do We Go? Berkeley, UC Berkeley's Office of External Affairs Vice President, Berkeley Federation of Teachers Officer's Council, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE.