*Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Project Islamic Hope President Najee Ali and a coalition of civil rights leaders on Thursday, March 22, called on California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the slaying by Sacramento Police of Stephon Clark.
The local leaders urge the AG to act based on the refusal of local District Attorneys to press charges against officers in the killing of unarmed civilians. Clark was unarmed in his Grandmother’s home backyard and officers discharged 20 shots at him.
“Attorney generals and governors in New York, Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio have appointed independent prosecutors, special investigators and independent panels in police slayings of unarmed civilians when local DAs have refused to prosecute,” says Hutchinson and Ali, “California’s Attorney General has that authority. And there is precedent for that in California. Becerra has placed the San Francisco Police Dept. under Attorney General monitoring in response to the gross violence and abuses by that department.”
The appointment of a special prosecutor by Becerra will send the strong message that police officers who wantonly overuse deadly force will be held accountable. And that local DAs who abrogate their responsibility to prosecute abusive officers will have authority removed from that in blatant cases of abuse such as the Clark slaying.
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Earl Ofari Hutchinson, President Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable
Dwayne Wyatt, L.A Black Employees for Fairness
Najee Ali, Director, Project Islamic Hope
Sikivu Hutchinson, Womens Leadership Project
Debbie Washington National Council of Negro Women
Robert Taylor, Black Ministerial Alliance
Lita Herron, President Youth Advocacy Coalition
Pedro Baez, Founder Voice of the People
Skip Townsend, Cease Fire
Vicky Lindsay Project Cry No More
Endorsement Requested:
NAACP-Los Angeles
Adrian Dove, Chairman, Congress of Racial Equality
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