BearCat and Militarization in Santa Cruz on KSCO Radio

KSCO owner Michael Zwerling was at the 2-11 forum opposing the BearCat armored personnel vehicle. Regretful that he didn't broadcast the forum live, he invited participants to come on the air on his Saturday Morning Special show.

The BearCat (Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck) slipped through City Council last December on apparently false information about "beating the deadline" is one symptom of a growing militarization of police forces, locally and across the nation.

Steve Pleich summarized the forum at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/02/12/18768432.php ["Local Activists Continue to Press the Issue on the BearCat and Militarization"].

Activists have shown up in numbers at 4 successive City Council meetings [See "BearCat Battle Moves Forward in Santa Cruz, City Council May Revisit Issue in March" at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/02/12/18768436.php ]. They've demanded the vehicle be rejected and returned and that new policies of greater public notice and SCPD transparency be put into place.

Zwerling has invited me, Abbi Samuels of SCRAM, and Courtney Hanson of Sin Barras to discuss these issues. As a representative of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom), I will be focusing on broader issues of SCPD racial and class profiling, , lack of transparency, and use of force. Abbi will be speaking as a member of Santa Cruzans Resistance Against Militarism. Sin Barras is concerned with prison reform and abolition.

Keith McHenry may appear in my stead if I'm unable to make it for health reasons.

HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) has sponsored three past protests at Laurel and Center ["Cop Corner"] next to the police station to draw attention to the disproportionate citing of poor people and people of color downtown by some officers.

With the national outrage against police brutality in the wake of Ferguson and other police killings, it's the right time to focus on problems in the SCPD.