Activists in Atlanta, GA demanded answers from Mayor Kasim Reed today through peaceful protest and sit in at Atlanta’s City Hall. R&B singer Usher was of those who participated in the sit in.
Today’s display was prompted by last week’s protest, when a group of 200-300 protesters sat outside of Governor Nathan Deal’s mansion demanding to speak with the Governor, Mayor and Chief of Police. The Mayor however was away and could not meet. Just before midnight though, both Mayor Reed and Chief Turner made an appearance and addressed the people; agreeing to a meeting on Monday July 18th, to go over demand’s and hopefully start a “cooling off” period.
The meeting was this morning (Monday) and lasted two hours. Mayor Reed, his cabinet, and several members of Atlanta’s Police Department were in attendance. Each person had two minutes to address officials – with most of the comments centering around police/community relationships, police brutality, police profiling, over policing, gentrification that pushes out established residents, homelessness, legislation that allows police to abuse their power, have police who live in the community patrol the community, and more training for officers.
By the end of the meeting, attendee’s and official’s came up with a list of demand’s that Mayor Reed intends to “respond” to soon. The list of demands are as follows:
1. Create mental health units to respond when a police call involves someone who is having a mental health crisis.
2. Use police funds for crime prevention rather than spending it on initiatives like Operation Whiplash.
3. Provide more police transparency when officers kill civilians.
4. Create a public database that provides information about citizen complaints against officers.
5. Create a meaningful citizen review board that has the authority to investigate and bring charges against officers.
6. Ensure all police officers wear body cameras.
