March for Justice--Defund the Police

Please join us on a March for Justice on Sunday, June 7th at 5 pm. We will begin our march from Capuchino Public High School 1501 Magnolia Ave, San Bruno and will proceed to the site of the murder of Chinedu Okobi on October 5, 2018 by 5 San Mateo County Sheriff's officers.

We march for George.
We march for Breonna.
We march for Chinedu.
We march for Yanira.
We march for Errol.
We march for and still mourn the deaths of the more than 29 people killed in San Mateo County by law enforcement.

Police violence is systemic and has deep roots within each of the 16 municipal police departments in San Mateo County and the San Mateo County Sheriff's office.

"The safest communities don't have the most cops; they have the most resources," said Jillian Johnson, the mayor pro tem of Durham, North Carolina, when she decided not to allocate more funding to city police officers. “Like every other community in America, our community is over-invested in policing and incarceration and under-invested in housing, jobs, education, health and all the other investments that make those punitive interventions unnecessary,” she wrote at the time.

We demand:

* Divest all San Mateo County Municipalities from their Police Departments and the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office; all funds should be prioritized for life-affirming services like healthcare and access to housing. **The recommended budget for 2020-21 for San Mateo County proposes a 12 million dollar increase in the Sheriff's budget, up from a 276+ million dollar budget, while the County is projected to be in a 65-100 million dollar deficit because of COVID-19.**

* Defunding of the corrupt San Mateo County Sheriff's Activities League with reinvestment into community-led organizations and programs

* Termination of all public educational institutions' contracts with municipal police and the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office


In solidarity,
Peninsula Democratic Socialists of America and the Justice for Chinedu Coalition