Author: Critical Resistance Page 3 of 4

This Thursday, February 2, 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will discuss and vote on a resolution authorizing designated City and County officials to execute and file on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco any actions necessary for the purpose of obtaining State and Federal financial assistance under various grant programs, including the Federal Fiscal Year 2017 Urban Areas Security Initiative Grant. This currently includes Urban Shield.

Demand that the Supervisors exclude Urban Shield from the resolution tomorrow!

As the fiscal agent for Bay Area UASI funds, the SF Board of Supervisors has the power to exclude Urban Shield as a program funded by this money. Let’s turn out strong for this meeting! As we have seen with the ban on refugees from Syria and immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries issued by Trump on Friday, this administration and the Department of Homeland Security (which provides the funds for UASI and Urban Shield) will stop at nothing to bring harm to our communities.

San Francisco has already demonstrated that it wants to push back against this executive order as well as the systematic dismantling of other protections for Muslim, Arab and immigrant communities such as Sanctuary City ordinances. Urban Shield is part and parcel of these recent actions and will contribute to the continued war on our communities and families here in the Bay Area and around the world. Join us to put an end to it.

Turn out to the Budget and Finance Committee meeting: 2/2/2017, 10am, SF City Hall, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl , San Francisco, CA 94102. Say NO to Urban Shield!

Tomorrow, January 25, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will decide whether or not to allow San Francisco to receive funding that supports the Urban Shield police war games and weapons expo.

On January 10, we showed Alameda County of Board of Supervisors the strength of community opposition to Urban Shield. Now it’s time to show their peers in San Francisco.

Tell San Francisco Board of Supervisors: No to Militarization! Vote No on Urban Shield!

Fight for stronger, safer, and healthier communities.

Take these two steps to end Urban Shield now:

1. Call the SF Board of Supervisors today, January 24th. Tell them to vote no on Urban Shield!

Please spread the word and encourage your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors to let the Board know, we want and end to Urban Shield now! Use the script and contact information below.

Sample script:

Dear Supervisor _________,

I am calling/writing to urge you and all San Francisco Supervisors in the Budget and Finance Committee to take leadership in putting an end to the militarization of police and the militarization of disaster preparedness in the Bay Area. On Wednesday, you will be asked to decide whether to authorize the City to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative. Because San Francisco is the fiscal agent for these programs in the Bay Area, this agreement will include funding for the militarized Urban Shield training and weapons expo, unless you amend the resolution to exclude Urban Shield. Several of your Supervisor colleagues last year publicly called for an end to Urban Shield. [see attached] As you are aware, the divisive election of Donald Trump has raised concerns about an increase in militarized policing and attacks on immigrants, Arabs and Muslims, communities of color, and poor people. We call on you to stand with the communities you represent and end the divisive, dangerous, and xenophobic Urban Shield training and weapons expo.Tomorrow, we urge you to exclude the authorization of any funding for Urban Shield. Thank you.

Call or write San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee members:

Supervisor Malia Cohen (415) 554-7670, Malia.Cohen@sfgov.org
Supervisor Norman Yee (415) 554-6516, Norman.Yee@sfgov.org
Supervisor Katy Tang (415) 554-7460, Katy.Tang@sfgov.org

2. Bring yourself and your people out to make a public comment on Wednesday, January 25th against Urban Shield.

Wednesday, January 25^th, 10:00 a.m., San Francisco City Hall Room 250. Sign up for public comment on Item 161354 (8^thitem on the agenda).

If the committee approves this resolution, it will go to the full Board of Supervisors, where there will not be an opportunity for public comment.

                                                                      * * * * *

By listening to the clear and powerful voice of San Francisco residents, the Board of Supervisors has the opportunity to shift away from the cynical fear mongering at the heart of Urban Shield and toward an approach that responds to genuine Bay Area disaster threats by investing in health, food security, emergency shelter, and community resilience.

From the disturbing images of police repressing indigenous resistance in Standing Rock to the often unreported near-daily SWAT raids in Black and Brown neighborhoods in our cities, we know that police militarization is a violent strategy of containment, control, and warfare. But we also know that all over the world, people are fighting back. The Stop Urban Shield coalition sees its work as a tangible and winnable step toward diminishing the destructive impacts of police militarization that serves to destabilize our communities. In 2016 the organizations that make us Stop Urban Shield have been proud to come together with others to educate ourselves about the shady path of resources and power involved in police militarization, to strategize to disrupt that toxic flow, and to take bold and inspiring actions against warfare in our neighborhoods and cities.

In 2016 many hours of outreach and building with community member and organizations culminated in a powerful direct action and civil disobedience against the Urban Shield weapons expo in Pleasanton in September. This mobilization disrupted both the expo and some of the war games crucial to an increase in police militarization. Building on the momentum of that action, we were also able compel elected officials in Alameda County to finally call critical questions about Urban Shield and the unaccountable and untransparent power exercised by the Sheriff’s office in controlling this program. All of this work was held together by different volunteer members of our coalition thinking together to research, analyze, understand, and critique Urban Shield. We are proud to this year to have issued our report Urban Shield: Abandoning Hope Not Build Hope as a strong educational foundation to our work.

Moving into 2017, people are all too aware that the destruction being proposed by the incoming Trump regime will require a redoubling of our efforts to come together, to defend our communities, and to fight back. Trump’s campaign has been a platform of fear-mongering and hate – calling for increased policing, mass deportations, surveillance, registries, detention and deportation of immigrant and Muslim communities, and has even labelled social movements like Black Lives Matter as terrorist organizations. The communities that will be highly targeted and affected under a Trump administration are the same ones targeted by policing and militarization programs like Urban Shield.

Stopping Urban Shield in Alameda County is a key local step to resisting the threats posed by Trump. Alameda County must stop sponsoring the racist, xenophobic, and lethal strategies, tactics, and technologies being spread by Urban Shield. Ending Urban Shield is more important than ever.

Just days after the Start of 2017 we invite you to take action to stop Urban Shield.

On January 10, 2017, due to community pressure, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will conduct a long overdue information session on Urban Shield. We know that the Sheriff will use every trick in his book to rationalize and defend this violent program. We need as many of our people there to raise our voices and share the true impacts of Urban Shield and police militarization, and to compel the Board to take the only rational and humane step possible: Stop Urban Shield.

JOIN US!

when:  Tuesday January 10, 10am Press Conference and Rally

where: Alameda County Administration Building 1221 Oak St., Oakland

Following the Press Conference and Rally, we will pack the Supervisors Meeting to show our county’s elected officials Urban Shield needs to be ended once and for all!

P.S. Are you an Alameda County resident? Sign our petition!

On October 6, San Francisco Board of Supervisor members John Avalos, David Campos and Eric Mar sent a letter urging the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to discontinue funding Urban Shield. Thank you Supervisors Avalos, Campos and Mar for standing against the militarization of police and the deployment of the tools of war into our neighborhoods and for community health and well being.

“During this grant cycle, we encourage Alameda County to suspend its proposals for funding for Urban Shield and instead take the opportinity to seek funding for the above-mentioned Planning and Risk Management, Medical and Public Health, Emergency Planning and Community Preparedness, and Recovery areas. As noted, UASI offers us a fair amount of latitude in how we disperse and use funding. This may include a wide range of first responder trainings as well as opportinities for first responders to collaborate with county and city institutions, along with non-governmental organizations. Discontinuing funding for Urban Shield does not foreclose on essential training, but instead allows us to invest in other UASI areas that are less tainted by controversy and community mistrust.”

Read the complete letter here. 

Labor unions, faith-based communities and other grassroots groups around the Bay Area are calling on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to end their support of Urban Shield by demanding that no funding for these war games be included in any proposals for FY 2017. Read their letters here. If your organization would like to add your voices to this call, Please email your letter as an attachment to stopurbanshieldnow@gmail.com and CC:

Supervisor Haggerty // shawn.wilson@acgov.org (510) 272-6691
Supervisor Valle // christopher.miley@acgov.org (510) 272-6692
Supervisor Chan // jeanette.dong@acgov.org (510)272-6693
Supervisor Miley // anna.gee@acgov.org (510)272-6694
Supervisor Carson // amy.shrago@acgov.org (510)272-6695

Health workers with the Oakland Power Projects, an initiative of Critical Resistance Oakland to reduce reliance on policing and build up alternatives, have written a statement against Urban Shield, and are asking for health workers to sign and circulate:

As Health Workers, we are committed to promoting and supporting wellness and care for all individuals and neighborhoods to enable people and communities to thrive. Through our experiences, we are strongly committed to the belief that healthcare must fundamentally be decoupled from policing and militarization, because of the historic, structural and current antagonistic role that police play in relation to health and community wellbeing.

Too many times, we have seen the deadly impact of policing in our neighborhoods – through police murders of predominantly people of color, as well as the disproportionate impacts of everyday policing and imprisonment on people of color, poor people, and people with specific mental health needs/disabilities. These trends illustrate that these communities are exactly the people who cops are trained to see as “problems,” to repress through surveillance, interrogation, detainment and use of force.

Policing interferes with–if not obstructs– people’s access to healthcare and interferes with the quality of care that people are able to receive. Policing can deter people from seeking emergency medical help, impedes with the actual delivery of life-saving care during emergencies, and can intimidate and discourage people from accessing routine medical care and health support when entangled with clinics, hospitals and community-based services. Policing is a public health threat.

It is imperative that we take a clear stand as professionals and Healthcare experts against the pervasiveness of policing in our neighborhoods. Urban Shield, a program funded by the Department of Homeland Security, aims to further equip cops with military training and weapons to enhance their power over our communities. The program is held in the Bay Area every year, and I am writing to ask your support to get it out. We do not want emergency response funds to go to military, weapons, or police trainings. We do not want cops and military trainings to co-opt EMT and emergency response resources. These actions are not just wasteful, but deadly.

Join us and take action: STOP URBAN SHIELD! Please stand with us as Health Workers, healthcare professionals, and community caregivers.

Signatories

Alejandra Cano, Oakland Power Projects
Braden Lake, Oakland Power Projects
Caitlin Miller, CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife)
Danny Kim, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) medical student
Joan Chen, Community Health Worker, Berkeley Free Clinic
Lara Barth, Community Health Educator
Lisa Guide, RN CNS (Registered Nurse Clinical Nurse Specialist)
Megan Rees, LPCC, Oakland Power Projects
Nadia Gaber, MD-PhD Candidate, UCSF
Rupa Marya, MD UCSF
Maisa Morrar, Alameda County EMS, EMT, PYM, Oakland Power Projects
Alma Sanchez, MD, MPH, UCSF Family and Community Medicine
Carolyn Kraus, MD/MS Candidate, UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program
AJ Pluss, Doctor of Physical Therapy Student
Juliana E. Morriss, MD, EdM UCSF Family and Community Medicine
Yakira Teitel, MD, MPH Resident Physician, UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine

Health Workers’ Letter to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors

TAKE ACTION:

Circulate this statement to Health Workers and join the signatories. Email Croakland @criticalresistance.org to sign on with your name, preferred affiliation or certification. Put “Health Worker signature, Stop Urban Shield” in the subject.

Sign the Stop Urban Shield petition 

Endorse the demand to Stop Urban Shield and with your organization, group, or network. Email stopurbanshieldnow@gmail.com.

In the wake of a massive mobilization against the Urban Shield weapons expo in Pleasanton on Friday, a newly published report authored by the Stop Urban Shield coalition illustrates the negative social and economic impacts of Urban Shield. The report also shows how the Alameda County Board of supervisors can take action to end the controversial program and instead fund programs less dominated by law enforcement. A digital copy of the report can be found here.