Justice for #WalterWallaceJr
Another beautiful black life was taken at the hands of police. Walter Wallace, Jr. should be alive today. The body cam footage confirms what we already knew: Wallace needed a mental health professional to provide care and support. Instead, Walter got cops with guns. One of the officers, Thomas Munz or Sean Matarazzo, can be heard giving an order to “shoot him” shortly after encountering him, ignoring pleas from the family and bystanders. De-escalation was never a thought during this deadly interaction.
How did this happen? The origins of policing in the US rooted in keeping Black people enslaved and breaking up labor unions. Police surveill, harass, displace, incarcerate, and kill Black people at a higher rate than any other group. Instead of making our communities safer, the impact of policing has left our communities grieving.
The Philadelphia Police Department has a history of corruption, rampant sexual assault, white supremacy, and use of excessive force. Earlier this year, we were made to believe that the hiring of Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw would lead us towards a path of reconciliation, fewer instances of police misconduct, and improved public safety. She has asked Philadelphians to trust her to lead the department towards smarter, community-policing, while simultaneously justifying the occupation and assault on West Philadelphia and criminalization of Black resistance.
Beyond asking for our patience and trust, city leadership is trying to transfer MORE money into the police department to equip police officers with tasers. Roughly $9 million will be taken from other programs/services in our city’s budget, to be added to the existing $727 million PPD budget. The police should be held accountable after killing someone, not rewarded with more resources.
Everyone, Black people especially, deserves to receive the care and support. But instead of investment into mental health services, housing, education, jobs, and healthcare all our communities have been offered is an expensive and violent police force. If the support we need was prioritized in our city’s budget, our communities could begin to heal and thrive.
In the case of Walter Wallace, Jr., city leadership seems to think justice looks like more money for racial bias training and tasers, both of which are already included in the current PPD budget yet haven’t prevented the brutalization and killing of our people. The only solution is to take action for justice that holds police accountable and moves our city in a new direction away from harmful policing. We have 3 important demands:
We demand the city fire Wallace's murderers & ensure they can’t terrorize our neighborhoods any more.
We demand the city refuse to award new money to PPD for new weapons like tasers, or other useless reforms.
We demand the city ban police from mental health crisis calls & invest in unarmed mental health crisis responders.
While we continue to follow the investigation and demand justice, we are also staying grounded in the reality that so much work has to be done to end the criminalization and violence against our communities. In the coming months, we have the opportunity to advance our efforts to divest from the PPD and reinvest in our communities and to also create better processes for holding police accountable. There are 3 major things at play: 1) the creation of the Citizens Police Oversight Board, to replace the ineffective Police Advisory Commission; 2) the labor contract between the Fraternal Order of Police and the City of Philadelphia; and 3) the FY2022 city budget.
To learn more about this work and demands we have for city leadership, read and sign our petition