Tag: Defund Cville Police

Categories
News

Not over: Activists reflect on Black Lives Matter protests, next steps in 2021

Protesters march through Charlottesville in July. PC: Eze Amos

While the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color this year, Black people have been dealing with “a pandemic of racism” in the United States for centuries, as Black mental health advocate Myra Anderson told C-VILLE over the summer.

When Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, ultimately killing him, these deep wounds of systemic violence and oppression were once again ripped open, sparking protests across the globe—and here in Charlottesville—in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

From June to September, local activists led a string of demonstrations demanding an end to police brutality, and calling for justice for Black people who’ve been murdered at the hands of cops. The events drew large crowds of all races and ages.

“The killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery…they woke people up,” says activist Zaneyah Bryant, a member of the Charlottesville Black Youth Action Committee and a ninth grader at Charlottesville High School. “It put a spark on people, like wow this is happening to our people. This could happen to anybody—this could happen in Charlottesville.”

While protests against police brutality continue in places like Portland, Oregon, it’s been several months since people in Charlottesville have taken to the streets. Though there haven’t been any drastic changes made in the city—CPD’s $18 million budget has not been touched, for example—some activists believe progress has been made toward racial justice.

“These are tough and difficult conversations. Up until at least recently, people were reluctant to begin to initiate them, but now [they] are actually being had,” says community activist Don Gathers. “We’ve reached the point in the…racist history of this country where people are willing to have these conversations.”

“[The protests] really just opened up more conversation surrounding how the police interact with the community, and allowed for us to envision a police-free society,” adds Ang Conn, an organizer with Defund CPD. “We have community members looking at budgets, policies, things that never prompted their attention before. And when you have a lot of eyes on things, there is bound to be change.”

With the support of the community, Charlottesville City Schools was able to end its school resource officer program with CPD in June, another step in the right direction, says Bryant.

Other activists like Rosia Parker say they have yet to see any progress in the city.

“[My protests] were peaceful, decent, in order, and orchestrated with Captain Mooney. For them to deny me my march, I don’t feel it was right,” says Parker, referring to the city’s threat to fine her and other activists in August, and its denial of her event permit in September. “Other protests, no they didn’t help Charlottesville. A lot of people came out and supported Black Lives Matter, but at the end of the day, [it] didn’t do anything.”

“There’s been no change in the governmental structure—it has gotten worse,” she adds, citing the resignation of City Manager Dr. Tarron Richardson in September as an example of the city’s pattern of staffing instability.

Pointing to the police assault of a Black houseless man on the Corner last month, Bryant also fears that, despite the months of protests, Charlottesville police “have gone right back to their old ways—harassing Black people.”

In the new year, the fight against police violence and systemic racism must continue, the activists emphasize.

Though it may be a few months before protesters hit the city streets again, there are plenty of ways to remain involved in the fight, says Bryant. She encourages allies to participate in city government meetings and mutual aid programs, especially for people experiencing homelessness or food insecurity.

“If you are white and you see someone of color or Black being harassed, stand up and use your voice,” she says. “When you say something to those officers, you have power to stop them.”

The city government must also strengthen its relationship with Black communities, especially in light of multiple recent shootings in town, says Bryant.

“Those people in those communities are asking for more police presence. [They] feel unsafe,” she says. “But we can’t use [that] as a reason to say, ‘Oh they’re asking, so we have to keep harassing them.’ We need people to help them understand what they are asking for, and what they mean by wanting more police presence.”

For Parker, ensuring police and government accountability is a priority for next year, as the Police Civilian Review Board works to update its bylaws and ordinance, per the new criminal justice legislation passed in the General Assembly this fall.

“If that means the mayor and police chief have to go, then so be it,” she says.

In addition to advocating for the CRB, Parker plans to offer programs for Black youth through her community organization, Empowering Generations XYZ, with a huge focus on mental health.

“If we can educate our own, become peer-support recovery specialists, become more trauma informed, we can be around for our community, and won’t have to be overpoliced or underpoliced,” she says. “We won’t even need the police—we can do what we need to do ourselves in our own communities. It’s just about getting the resources and education.”

Finally, Gathers and Conn say they will keep on pushing City Council to slash CPD’s $18 million budget, and reallocate those funds to various social services and programs within the next year.

“That’s a lot of money, and people are really struggling out here with a lot of things,” says Conn. “We must continue to work towards hacking away at that police budget until it’s zero.”

Categories
News

False alarm?: CPD refutes racial profiling claims, calls on church leaders to “apologize or be terminated”

Leaders at the Unitarian Church on Rugby Road accused the police department of racial profiling in October. The police department denies the claim. PC: Staff photo

In October, leaders at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlottesville penned a blog post accusing the Charlottesville Police Department of racial profiling. According to the clergy, CPD unnecessarily detained and intimidated a Black congregant as he was walking to church.

On December 10, Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney held a press conference during which she shared body camera footage, and announced that an internal investigation conducted by her department found no evidence of police misconduct during the October 7 stop.

After sharing the results of the investigation, Brackney demanded that Unitarian church leaders “apologize or be terminated,” calling the church’s claims “baseless and race-baiting.” The press conference drew concern from activists in town, and placed renewed scrutiny on the department’s internal investigations policy.

Profiling incident

In an open letter released October 15, the clergy accused the department of harassing one of their church members, a 63-year-old Black man. According to the church, the man was allegedly surrounded by five police cars after a UVA student called the police on him while he was walking to church. The officers asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood, and demanded his social security number and identification, suspecting him of committing a recent series of break-ins.

The church claimed he looked nothing like the photo of the suspect, but was still interrogated until a white church member came over to investigate the situation. The clergy called on the department to apologize to the man.

After reviewing the 911 call, radio transmissions, and body camera footage, and interviewing the parties involved, CPD’s internal affairs unit concluded that the church’s claims were false, said Brackney last Thursday.

According to audio and visual evidence, the 911 call that sparked the incident was not made by a UVA student, but a teenager. She claimed that a Black man was loitering on private property, and that he had previously broken into a neighbor’s house.

While standing on the sidewalk, the church member flagged down the responding officer because he had seen someone run into the house and assumed the homeowner had called the police. A second officer soon arrived on the scene, and explained he should not cut through private property to get to his church, in light of the recent break-ins.

Body camera footage showed that the church member, who had a tracheostomy and could not speak, was visibly upset. He believed the officers were accusing him of committing the break-ins, which they clarified they were not.

“The thing is, if I lived there, and somebody walks behind my house every day, it would make me nervous too,” said the second officer. “If you’re freaked out, and they’re freaked out, and the common denominator is not to walk through there, then why don’t we do that?”

When the man claimed the police were called because he was Black, the second officer, who is also Black, insisted “it [had] nothing to do with race,” and told the three detectives who arrived on the scene that the man was playing “the race card.” A church member later came over to check on the man, who was never detained or charged with a crime.

Press conference sparks strong feelings

The police department initiated an investigation into the incident after it received the letter from interim lead minister Reverend Dr. Linda Olson Peebles in October, but it wasn’t until a month later, when the letter was shared on Twitter, that the activist community took notice. In late November, the Defund Charlottesville Police Department Campaign and other advocacy groups penned an op-ed in the Cavalier Daily, calling for the firing of the officers involved in the alleged racial profiling incident.

During the press conference, Brackney fired back. The chief listed the names of the church members who signed the open letter, accusing them of leveraging “their privilege and self-serving agendas.” She also called for the activist groups who “co-signed this smear campaign” against CPD to issue apologies.

Shortly before the press conference, Peebles issued a statement to her congregation, expressing the church leadership’s concern over the investigation’s findings. She claimed there were “a number of discrepancies between the testimony of the police and the account of the church member,” but that the church member no longer wanted them to address the situation.

Peebles later said Brackney made “unfair accusations” about the church leadership during the press conference. She claimed the church leadership penned the letter after talking directly with the church member, and had him approve it before sending it to CPD. They also never asked for the officers to resign.

“We are disappointed…as it seems [CPD] has minimized our member’s experience, our concerns, and our right to ask for the police to respond to us without malice,” she stated.

In a statement released December 12, Defund CPD also criticized Brackney for her retaliatory rhetoric during the conference.

“Brackney [attempted] to publicly intimidate those who rightfully questioned and criticized the police,” read the statement. She “intended to discredit the voices and experiences of the Black community…and to silence anyone who might think of filing a complaint against the police in the future.”

Defund CPD demanded Brackney resign immediately for abusing her power, and called on City Council to take action.

Sarah Burke, a member of the city’s initial Police Civilian Review Board, hopes Brackney’s behavior will not deter local residents from filing complaints about police misconduct, which they can also send to the oversight board, with the department.

“When you have a press conference…where the narrative is so spun to be protective of police and critical of anybody who wants to report what they believe to be racial profiling, [that] is part of a bigger pattern of the way people have been silenced historically,” she says. “It begs the question of how impartial the police can be in investigating their own conduct.”

Internal affairs

Usually, the police department publishes the results of its internal investigations on its website, describing the outcome with a single word: sustained, unfounded, exonerated, or not resolved. The department found the church’s racial profiling complaint to be unfounded.

The internal affairs data on the police department’s website was last updated on September 28 of this year, and from January 1 to September 28, the department opened 28 internal investigations. Ten were sustained, meaning the officer “acted in violation of applicable procedures.”

The results of the department’s internal accountability procedures don’t always align with outside sources’ assessments of the incidents.

After officer Jeffrey Jaeger, who is white, slammed a Black man’s head into a fence while responding to a verbal dispute in March, he filed a use-of-force report and was cleared by the department. But when body camera footage from the incident was shown during a trial in July, a complaint was filed with CPD concerning potential criminal wrongdoing. Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania reviewed the case and ordered a full-scale investigation, charging Jaeger with misdemeanor assault and battery.

On December 11, Jaeger was found guilty, and handed a 12-month suspended sentence and two years of unsupervised probation, meaning he will not spend time in jail. He appealed his conviction to the Charlottesville Circuit Court, and currently is on administrative leave without pay. As things stand now, the police department’s examination of the incident cleared an officer who was later convicted by a court of law.

In its internal affairs data, the department does not explain the reason for each case ruling, or disclose which disciplinary measures were taken against the officers found guilty of violating department policy, or the law.

The “opacity” of internal affairs investigations has long been a concern for many community members and activists, says Maisie Osteen, a civil rights attorney for the Legal Aid Justice Center.

“In so many cases, the problem [is] the process being so impermeable to citizens being a part of it and understanding it. The public only knows what the police want us to know,” she says, “What comes out of the investigation is a curated lens from the police department—good or bad.”

Osteen has also seen many people hesitate to file police complaints because they are afraid they won’t get taken seriously, nothing will be done, or they’ll face retribution.

“What’s going on right now is showing how necessary it is to create a robust police civilian oversight board,” she says. “[It] adds legitimacy and accountability to both the peoples’ understanding of what’s going on, and the police internal investigations.”

Community activist Walt Heinecke also feels that the internal investigations process has been “pretty tightly held,” especially given the limited advisory role currently afforded to the Civilian Review Board.

Heinecke ultimately hopes that the church member who filed the complaint will appeal it so it can be reviewed by the CRB. (The board will be allowed to independently receive and investigate complaints with subpoena power when new state criminal justice reforms go into effect next year.)

“There may be another version of the story that is possible from a larger review by the [CRB], if asked to review the case, of evidence beyond the edited version presented,” says Heinecke. “If that does not happen, the mistrust of the police by some in the community may be exacerbated.”

Categories
News

In brief: Police problems, school sickness, and more

UVA Chief of Police Tim Longo came under fire recently for UPD’s treatment of a Black man on the Corner. PC: Eric Kelley

Under fire

Shortly before midnight on November 15, a houseless Black man named Lawrence was reportedly violently detained by both Charlottesville and University police on the Corner.

According to eyewitness accounts given to Defund Cville Police, three UPD officers pushed Lawrence into the brick wall in front of Cohn’s. A dozen more officers soon arrived on the scene, and slammed him to the ground. Four pinned him down with their knees, digging into his back and ribs.

While witnesses and Lawrence’s wife asked multiple times why the officers were detaining him, they reportedly did not provide a clear answer. One officer accused Lawrence of trespassing on UVA Grounds, while another said they needed to question him and resolve a dispute with his wife.

The officers then pressed down onto Lawrence’s neck, claiming he was biting them, though witnesses say he was not. They allegedly did not let him go until another officer arrived and deescalated the situation.

Lawrence was then allowed to sit up and answer questions, which were not related to the incident, claim witnesses.

Because of the extent of injuries, Lawrence reportedly could barely walk or stand. When he was taken to the hospital, it was revealed he had three broken ribs, and multiple cuts and abrasions on his arms, wrists, side, and feet.

After Defund Cville Police’s account of the incident sparked outcry on social media last week, UVA’s Chief of Police Tim Longo released a statement about the “difficult encounter,” failing to mention Lawrence’s extensive injuries, or the large number of officers reportedly on the scene.

According to Longo, a UPD officer witnessed a verbal altercation between Lawrence and a woman outside a store on the Corner. He approached the couple and asked for identification. While the woman provided it, Lawrence refused, and walked away, crossing University Avenue onto UVA Grounds.

Another officer soon arrived on the scene, and recognized Lawrence from a previous incident at UVA hospital, during which Lawrence “became disorderly” and was banned from coming back onto UVA Grounds.

The officers followed Lawrence, told him he was trespassing, and tried to detain him. Lawrence went back to the Corner, which is off UVA Grounds, and attempted to leave the scene. The two officers then pursued and restrained him “for further investigation,” resulting in “several minutes” of “active resistance and struggle,” Longo writes.

A UPD supervising officer later deescalated the situation, ordering that Lawrence be allowed to sit up for questioning and evaluated by medical responders before allowing him to leave the Corner.

“Upon review of the incident, the Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney has determined that none of the officers acted unlawfully,” stated Longo, who has now begun an internal UPD review into the incident.

One officer has been placed on administrative leave. Defund Cville Police demands every officer involved in the incident be fired immediately, and calls on the community to support Lawrence as he recovers from his injuries.

_________________

Quote of the week

“Enough is enough. When do we start fixing it and stop covering up things?”

—South First Street resident Angela Barnes advocating for installing security cameras during a CRHA meeting last week, following a recent murder in the public housing community

__________________

In brief

Get registered

Jackson P. Burley School, Charlottesville’s Black high school during the age of segregation, was added to the National Register of Historic Places last week. Burley opened in 1951, “part of an effort [by] many jurisdictions in Virginia to support segregation by constructing new and well-equipped separate but equal high schools for African American students,” reads the NRHP listing. The school was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register in September.

                                 Jackson P. Burley School PC: Skyclad Aerial

Cool your jets

Just after Thanksgiving, UVA’s football team flew down to Tallahassee, ready to take on the 2-6 Florida State Seminoles. But upon arrival, the team was told the game had been postponed due to uncontained coronavirus among FSU’s players. It’s the third time this season the Cavaliers have had an opponent cancel on them due to COVID.

School outbreak

Five students at Woodbrook Elementary School tested positive for coronavirus last week, and are currently quarantined at home. The students and staff who attended classes with the students were also asked to self-isolate for 10 days. On November 9, Albemarle County moved to Stage 3 of reopening, welcoming about 2,700 students—mostly pre-kindergarteners through third graders—into schools for hybrid learning.

Supply chain training

Virginia is running its first round of vaccine distribution tests, reports the Virginia Mercury. The state Department of Health is overseeing 50 sites around the commonwealth as they practice transporting COVID-19 vaccines, in hopes of being prepared when the first shipments of real vaccines begin to arrive later this month.

Categories
News

In brief: Keeping the pressure, breaking the law, and more

Activists call for defunding the police at a rally outside the police station in June. PC: Eze Amos

Defunders keep fighting

“Does abolition really mean ending the police? Yes.”

So said community organizer Ang Conn, as she spearheaded last Wednesday’s Zoom conversation on policing, hosted by Defund Cville Police. Over 80 community members joined in on the call.

The group hopes to keep the pressure on as the summer of protests moves into autumn. Though Charlottesville City Council has proposed a mental health crisis response task force, it has yet to take any action toward reducing CPD’s budget.

Defund Cville Police wants City Council to cut the police budget by 60 percent and invest those funds in housing, education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and other low-barrier community services.

The group has also called for a freeze on police hiring, and the creation of a community crisis hotline, which would dispatch responders trained in de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and transformative and restorative justice.

According to Conn, defunding will help the community work toward police abolition. “We’ll take that budget yearly until it’s zero,” she said.

Several other activists—including UVA students—joined Conn in leading a presentation on policing, starting with its racist origins. While slave patrols surveilled and captured enslaved Black people in the South, police forces emerged to maintain race and class hierarchy in the North.

The activists discussed how Black and brown communities—along with other marginalized groups, like organized labor and houseless people—have been systemically harmed by law enforcement at every level.

UVA student Donavon Lea described police reforms, like body cameras and additional training, as a “band-aid for a bigger issue”—they only feed more money into the prison industrial complex, and away from communities.

“Society has the idea of hiding folks away in prisons…when we have the ability and resources to address these issues in society,” added Conn.

Pumping funding into police departments has not helped victims, particularly those of sexual and interpersonal violence, the activists emphasized. About 99 percent of sexual assault perpetrators walk free, while more than 90 percent of domestic violence cases reported to the police do not result in jail time, and may cause more problems for the victim.

The activists will continue to pressure the city, but in the meantime, Conn encouraged all the event attendees to get involved in mutual aid and support, which she said will help to build a police-free community.

_________________

Quote of the week

“The majority of the rallies, demonstrations, and marches here are primarily people [who] don’t look very diverse.”

—Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney, implying that this year’s Black Lives Matter protests have included too many white people

__________________

In brief

Bar none

A quick drive around the Corner on a weekend night reveals that some UVA students are partying on, undeterred by the virus or the school’s 10-person limit on gatherings. Lines to get into bars often wrap around the block. Under Virginia’s Phase 3 guidelines, restaurants are allowed to open for indoor dining but “bar seats and congregating areas of restaurants must be closed to patrons except for through-traffic.”

Shelter skelter

Last year, Hinton Avenue Methodist Church was shocked to find that a group of Belmont residents opposed the church’s plan to set up Rachel’s Haven, a 15-unit apartment building including several units reserved for those with intellectual disabilities. Now, the group that started a petition against the project is trying to abandon its own cause, scared off by “an outright attack on our group” on social media, reports The Daily Progress.

Safety first

Albemarle teachers—along with parents, students, and other supporters—gathered in front of the Albemarle County Office Building on Fifth Street last week to protest the district’s move to Stage 3, which will put up to 5,000 preschoolers through third graders in the classroom.

Dining out

After months of pandemic losses, Charlottesville restaurants will no longer have to pay the city’s deferred outdoor space rental fee for the months of March and April, and only need to cover half of the fee for the following months, according to an ordinance passed by City Council on Monday. Restaurants seeking to rent more outdoor space will also get a 50 percent discount.

PC: Staff photo
Categories
News

In brief: “Crying Nazi” faces prison time, neo-Nazi stickers spotted downtown, and more

PC: Eze Amos

Locked up

The “Crying Nazi” faces up to 22 years in prison. You have to make a lot of bad decisions in life for the local newspaper to write that sentence about you—and that’s exactly what Chris Cantwell has done.

The New Hampshire far-right radio host came to Charlottesville for the 2017 Unite the Right rally, where he was filmed by Vice chanting “Jews will not replace us” as he marched down the UVA Lawn with a tiki-torch wielding mob. Later that night, he pepper sprayed protesters at the base of the Jefferson statue, which eventually earned him two misdemeanor assault and battery charges and a five-year ban from the state of Virginia.

Soon after the rally, Cantwell uploaded a video of himself tearily proclaiming his innocence, earning him the above-mentioned nickname.

This time around, he’s been found guilty of extortion and interstate threats. In 2019, Cantwell sent online messages in which he threatened to rape another neo-Nazi’s wife if that neo-Nazi didn’t reveal the identity of a third neo-Nazi who had remained anonymous at the time.

In an interview with C-VILLE in 2017—conducted from his cell at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail—Cantwell offered a comment that looks positively prophetic in hindsight. “I’m a shock jock. I offend people professionally,” he said. “If we’re going to talk about all the nasty things I said on the internet, we’re going to be here for a while.”

Justice for Breonna

After several months of investigation, a grand jury indicted former Louisville police detective Brett Hankison last Wednesday for endangering the neighbors of Breonna Taylor during a botched no-knock raid—but did not charge the two officers who shot and killed the 26-year-old Black emergency-room technician in her own home.

Just hours after the announcement, more than 100 Charlottesville residents gathered on the Belmont Bridge in solidarity with Louisville, demanding justice for Taylor through the defunding and abolishing of police.

The crowd toted homemade signs and joined in chants led by organizer Ang Conn, as passing cars honked in support. A few protesters blocked the bridge with cars and cones, allowing everyone to move off the sidewalk and into the road for more chants and speeches from Black attendees.

Protesters marched down Market Street to the front of the Charlottesville Police Department, which had its doors locked and appeared to be empty, with no cops in sight.

“Say her name—Breonna Taylor,” chanted the crowd. “No justice, no peace—abolish the police.”

_________________

Quote of the week

“We have to do something. It’s not creating more data we already know. It’s not providing more funding to the police department. It’s not waiting to see how it plays out in court. …It’s rare for police to be held accountable.”

—community organizer Ang Conn calling for justice for Breonna Taylor during a protest held by Defund Cville Police

__________________

In brief

Fascist threat

In recent weeks, anti-racist activists have spotted dozens of stickers promoting the white supremacist, neo-Nazi group Patriot Front on or near the Downtown Mall and the Corner, as well as near the Lee and Jackson statues, reports Showing Up for Racial Justice. The activists urge anyone who sees a sticker to document its location, use a sharp object to remove it, and tell others where they saw it. If, however, you see someone putting up a sticker, the group advises against approaching the person if you are alone—instead, discreetly take a photo and alert others of the incident.

PC: Charlottesville Showing Up for Racial Justice

Jumped the gun

In case it wasn’t already clear what kind of operation Republican congressional candidate Bob Good was running, last weekend the Liberty University administrator held a “God, Guns, and a Good time” rally in Fluvanna County. Fliers for the event advertised a raffle with an AR-15 as the top prize. Good’s campaign now denies any affiliation with the raffle, reports NBC29, as holding a raffle to benefit a political campaign violates Virginia gambling and election laws.

Board bothers

The Charlottesville Police Civilian Review Board continues to meet obstacles in its years-long quest to provide oversight for local policing. Last week, just three months after the first meeting, board member Stuart Evans resigned. In his resignation letter, Evans declared the body was “fundamentally flawed,” and that the city’s refusal to give the board any real power led to his resignation. “I refuse to help the City clean up its image by peddling fictions of progress,” he wrote.

Categories
Coronavirus News

United university: UVA employees organize for better treatment

Evan Brown is among the graduate students leading the unionization efforts at UVA. PC: Zack Wajsgras

By Sydney Halleman

It’s been over a decade since the University of Virginia has seen a serious attempt at unionization. The Staff Union at UVA dissolved in 2008 after failing to keep its membership count high enough, and a 2011 union effort fizzled before it could get off the ground. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic has worsened working conditions and brought workplace safety to the foreground, university employees are giving unionizing another shot.

The United Campus Workers of Virginia’s founding was spurred by concern about UVA’s opening Grounds to students, and the sudden layoffs of Aramark contract workers in April.

“We recognize that decisions that have been made can harm workers,” says Evan Brown, a fourth-year biology graduate student and organizer of the union. “If UVA is such an upstanding member of our community, and if it loves its employees, then it should stand by its workers even when things are tough.”

Crystal Luo had been thinking about unionizing ever since she enrolled in her history graduate program at UVA and began working as a teaching assistant.

“As much as the university likes to say that grad students are students first,” Luo says, “in so many cases we are workers for the university.”

At first, Luo and her cohort didn’t think a union was possible in Virginia. In 2019, Oxfam America ranked Virginia as the worst state for workers’ rights in the entire country. Virginia is one of 27 right-to-work states, a law that weakens unions by banning them from compelling employees to participate in the union. And though unions are legal here, Virginia is one of just three states—along with North Carolina and South Carolina—in which collective bargaining in the public sector is prohibited, meaning unions cannot participate in strikes or negotiate employee contracts with public university representatives.

Then, in March, a touring group of United Campus Workers representatives visited the university to try to gin up support for unionization. The meeting drew around 40 employees; representatives explained that unions were not illegal in Virginia and that, in fact, unionizing was protected under federal law, even though UVA is not legally allowed to recognize or negotiate with the union.

The representatives sparked an interest in unionizing that had not been effectively solidified since SUUVA’s 2008 termination. It didn’t hurt that the representatives came in early March, a week before COVID-19 forced the university to close. The representatives planted a seed for unionization that continued on during the spring.

“People were impressed with the resources that UCW had, and their level of support,” Brown says. “It was like, they have the experience, they have everything we need. Let’s get going.”

“The pandemic lit a fire under a lot of people,” Luo says. “Everyone was being asked to do so much more than they usually would, with no concurrent increase in pay or anything like that.”

UCW has a strong track record of unionizing southern universities, specifically in right-to-work states, and winning higher wages and better working conditions for members. The organization is affiliated with the Communication Workers of America, one of the largest labor unions in the U.S. UCW, unlike many university unions, is a wall-to-wall union, meaning any employee of the university can join. That’s a key difference from UVA unions of the past, which were  fragmented and split among different faculty, staff, and groups.

After meeting with the UCW reps, Brown and the ad-hoc executive committee quickly began compiling a list of goals, chiefly that the university switch to fully online classes. Now that students are back, the union is advocating that they return home as soon as possible.

“If we can get the university to make the right call even a day earlier than they would have without community pressure, then that’s one day less of students being in Charlottesville,” Luo says.

Other chief concerns surround the treatment of graduate students and their duties, namely because a majority of the union’s current members are graduate students. Some of their graduate-centered demands include more transparent compensation and a graduate worker representative similar to human resources, which graduate students don’t have access to.

Since transitioning to online classes, some graduate students in the union have seen their workloads double while their compensation remains the same, says Luo.

“Those of us who have been working as TAs have often been asked to shoulder the grunt work of moving classes online,” Luo says.

Luo believes that past unions failed  because they took a narrow approach to workplace justice.  In order to attract the large, diverse coalition needed to make headway, she says the union will have to emphasize social justice in its rhetoric. “You really can’t win things like wage increases or economic rights without taking into consideration issues of racial justice,” Luo says. “There definitely needs to be a kind of intersectional broad approach [to unionizing.]”

In addition to graduate students, the union hopes to incorporate UVA staff. Luo is particularly interested in having health system representation in the union, citing layoffs, staff shortages, and safety concerns at the hospital.

But the goals of the organization go beyond working conditions at the university. UCWVA also wants to partner with area justice organizations like Black Lives Matter Charlottesville, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Defund Cville Police, so that the union can best provide support to the community outside the school’s walls. In theory, a UVA worker’s union with a strong relationship to the city at large could step in and threaten collective action when the school’s decisions endanger those unaffiliated with the university.

“I think that it’s really time for those of us who kind of live in the bubble of UVA to use this as an opportunity to reach out and engage in a more kind of like democratic and inclusive and community minded form of belonging and organizing here,” Luo says.

“Any time you get a large group of people together, people who make the university run, who are central to the university’s functioning…and we figure out how to use it in constructive ways, then we can make change happen.”

Categories
Coronavirus News

In brief: Activist fined, white supremacist jailed, and more

Organizers could be fined for events that happened weeks or months ago, according to City Manager Tarron Richardson. PC: Zack Wajsgras

Cracking down

Just days after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, sparking national outrage and protests, City Manager Tarron Richardson decided to crack down on gatherings in Charlottesville—targeting those organized by Black residents.

While Richardson supports the right to “peaceably assemble” amidst the pandemic, he explained in a press release Thursday evening that “obstructing city streets and using parks without the proper permits will no longer be allowed.”

The city also will begin fining organizers for events that happened weeks or months ago. Rob Gray, who helped plan a Juneteenth celebration in Washington Park, received a $500 fine, and the Black Joy Fest and the Reclaim the Park celebration held last month at city parks are currently under review.

In a letter sent to Gray last week, Richardson claimed he had discussed the city’s ordinance on COVID-19 restrictions with him the day before Juneteenth, explaining that the city was not issuing special use permits for events held in public parks, and that gatherings of 50 or more were banned. But Gray refused to cancel his event, and agreed in advance to pay the civil penalty.

Though Richardson didn’t name names, it sure seems like the warning was meant for Black activists Rosia Parker and Katrina Turner, who planned a Friday night march from the city police department to Tonsler Park in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. He threatened to issue them citations for not having a special event permit, but the pair took to the streets anyway, along with 30 or so other protesters.

“They won’t shut me up,” Parker tweeted shortly after the press release came out.

__________________

Quote of the week

“Today, we are marching for criminal justice reform. Today, we are marching to end police brutality. Today, we are marching for the right to be seen as human.”

—Richmond activist Tavorise Marks at the August 28 Commitment March on Washington, held in honor of the 57th anniversary of the original march.

__________________

In brief

FourFiveSignatures

After gathering the required 5,000 signatures, Kanye West has qualified for the November ballot as an independent presidential candidate in Virginia. But the Washington Post reports that some of those signers felt they were hoodwinked into signing in favor of West, and that representatives from the campaign misrepresented how their signatures would be used. It’s unclear how the controversy might affect West’s floundering run.

Tech check

Senator Mark Warner stopped by the new WillowTree offices in Woolen Mills last week to celebrate the completion of the 80,000 square-foot office renovation. Meanwhile, downtown, construction of the CODE building chugs along, with some new COVID-friendly tweaks—to keep ventilation going, the building’s windows will now actually open, a feature that wasn’t initially planned.

Jail cases

Seven inmates total have now tested positive for COVID-19 at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Pointing to severe outbreaks in nearby correctional facilities, Defund Cville Police sent a letter to the ACRJ demanding the jail ramp up its testing procedures, distribute more hygiene products to inmates, and halt all new admissions to the facility.

Harassment sentence

Daniel McMahon, whose online harassment and racist threats caused activist Don Gathers to suspend his 2019 City Council campaign, has been sentenced for his crimes. The Florida-based man will spend 41 months in federal prison and, upon release, serve a three-year probation during which he won’t be allowed to use the internet without court supervision.

Categories
News

Imperfect solution: Activists warn that existing social service systems can’t fix problems with policing

Mental health advocate Myra Anderson warns that the social service systems need reform too. PC: Eze Amos

Since the violent arrest of an unhoused man on the Downtown Mall earlier this month, Defund Cville Police—along with numerous other activists and community members—have continued to call for the creation of a local mobile crisis unit, which would respond to emergency calls that the police are not equipped to handle.

Lori Wood, director of emergency and short term stabilization services at Region Ten Community Service Board, has expressed public support for the creation of such a unit, which she says could answer some calls related to mental health or substance abuse.

But radically shifting the city’s budget alone will not bring an end to systemic racism and oppression, specifically within mental health services, warns Black mental health advocate Myra Anderson.

“It’s moving money from one system that has historically and systemically not treated Black people right, [to] another system that has the same legacy,” says Anderson about Region Ten, a public agency—funded by local, state, and federal dollars—providing mental health, intellectual disability, and substance use services to Charlottesville and surrounding counties.

“Region Ten doesn’t need to be the go-to person [for the mobile crisis unit],” says Anderson, a former client who later became a board member and peer support specialist at the agency. “I feel like it’s Black skin…police are going to be on the scene anyway, based on personal biases that people [there] have.”

Former client Quezeann Williams also attests to these biases. At 10 years old, she says she was forced to go to Region Ten without her mother’s consent after she entered foster care, and was put on medications that “never made her feel good” and caused her to gain a lot of weight, among other side effects.

“I feel like because I was Black, what I said to the white people did not matter. It was their words against anything I felt, needed, or wanted,” says Williams, who graduated from Charlottesville High School this year. “I struggle from anxiety due to this being more so trauma than anything…It was one of the worst experiences I ever went through.”

Anderson began receiving services at Region Ten as a child in the ‘90s, and was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. After graduating from college, she says she returned to the agency for adult services, but was inflicted with even more trauma.

“The system caused me to be subjected to everything from cultural incompetency, to racial unawareness…to microaggressions,” she says. “There was a gap in racial empathy. And that has been consistent throughout the time I received services.”

These problems in mental health care systems exist nationwide. Black people, indigenous people, and people of color are more likely to receive poor quality of care and have their services end prematurely, among other disparities, according to the American Counseling Association.

Per federal law, Region Ten cannot comment on individual cases. However, it’s been working for several years to expand its cultural awareness and sensitivity as part of its strategic plan, says community relations coordinator Joanna Jennings.

“[We] offered staff and management the opportunity to attend a local racial and cultural humility training in the fall of 2018 and 2019,” she says. “These two training sessions began a journey for Region Ten that has opened up the conversation of systemic racism at all levels of the agency.”

In 2016, Anderson filed a formal complaint about her treatment with the Charlottesville Human Rights Commission. The complaint made its way up to the Virginia Human Rights Committee, and the following year, it ruled that Region Ten had unlawfully prevented her from receiving services for six years as retaliation for her complaints, slamming the agency with multiple violations.

Region Ten isn’t the only social service provider in Charlottesville that has demonstrated racial bias. An independent 2019 report on the city’s foster care system showed that Black and multiracial children were referred to child welfare services at a higher rate than white children, and that “some racial groups compared to others” experienced “less favorable outcomes” once within the system.

Instead of relying on existing social service institutions, Anderson—alongside local advocacy nonprofit Partner for Mental Health—plans to create a working group of peers, professionals, and other stakeholders from diverse backgrounds “to reimagine mental health without police intervention.”

The group will seek to understand the community’s needs and listen to the stories of “our most marginalized people who have engaged with our police while in mental distress,” she says. It will also study other mobile crisis units around the country and provide recommendations to City Council. The group hopes that starting from scratch will allow the new agency to focus on its work, without having to fight against biases in established institutions.

In recent years, Region Ten has created a team to lead its equity efforts, which plans to provide implicit racial bias training, among other goals and initiatives. It’s also looking to hire and retain more diverse staff.

“Region Ten recognizes that this is a long-term and multi-faceted commitment,” adds Jennings. “We will continue to press forward.”

While Anderson is in support of expanding additional behavioral health services through defunding the police, she believes Region Ten and other existing social service systems need to fix their “implicit biases” before receiving more money. “You can’t throw a band-aid on something that’s more like a gaping wound,” she says.

Categories
News

The fight continues: Downtown rally amplifies voices of Black women despite threats

Organizers Zaneyah Bryant and Ang Conn honor the Black women who’ve died at the hands of police with a moment of silence. PC: Eze Amos

It’s been nearly two months since the murder of George Floyd, but protests against police violence continue around the country, including here in Charlottesville. Over a hundred protesters took to the streets July 17 to amplify Black women’s voices and struggles, and demand justice for those who’ve been killed by police, including Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland.

Hosted by Defund Cville Police, the demonstration started in front of the Albemarle County Office building, where organizer Ang Conn welcomed the (masked) crowd and led several chants, including “No justice, no peace, defund the police,” and “Black women matter.”

Youth organizers (and twin sisters) Zaneyah and Zeniah Bryant, who are 14, also took turns shouting chants into their megaphone, alongside local activist and friend Trinity Hughes. Drivers passing by honked their horns in support.

While the group gathered on East High Street, a white woman drove around the public works truck blocking the road, and twice told the protesters they would “make good speed bumps,” according to tweets from the event and a Medium post from Defund Cville Police. The threat is especially chilling and violent given that Heather Heyer was murdered by a driver just a few blocks from where the protest took place.

The woman was soon identified as UVA undergraduate Morgan Bettinger. Her stepfather, Wayne Bettinger, was a Charlottesville police officer until he passed away in 2014.

When asked, the Charlottesville Police Department said it is “respectively declining comment” about the family member of a former member of the force.

Defund Cville Police called for Bettinger’s expulsion from UVA, but activist Zyahna Bryant says the group will not press charges. “We cannot and will not use/expect systems and institutions that disproportionately harm and criminalize Black people, to protect us at this time. They won’t. We protect us,” Bryant tweeted.

UVA released a statement via social media saying, “We are aware of the allegations on social media about a student’s conduct with respect to a protest in the city and are actively investigating the matter.”

The protesters walked down the mall before stopping in front of the Charlottesville Albemarle Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, where Conn asked everyone to take a knee and a moment of silence to honor the Black women who have lost their lives at the hands of police.

In front of the courthouse, Conn spoke about why money needs to be reallocated from the Charlottesville Police Department—which currently has a budget of $18 million—to different social departments and programs, especially the city’s foster care system.

Reading from last year’s Charlottesville Foster Care Study, she emphasized the disproportionate amount of Black and multiracial children who are referred to child welfare services, compared to their white peers in the city. These children are also less likely to be reunified with their families upon exiting foster care.

Conn, who spent time in foster care, invited Black people in the crowd who’ve been affected by the system to share their stories.

Sisters Harli and Kyra Saxon detailed the trauma inflicted on them after their parents split up, and their mother was no longer able to keep up with the bills. The family was evicted from their home, and CPS eventually got involved. Kyra was forced to live with the girls’ abusive father, while Harli was sent to a group home and later lived with several foster families. The pair said they begged to live with their mother, but the social workers assigned to their case—as well as a “racist” judge—did little to help them, even as they faced serious mental health crises.

After five years of battling CPS, the sisters were reunited with their mother.

“That’s what defunding the police is about—channeling those funds into assistance,” said Harli. “If somebody had come up to my mom and said here is some rent money, this never would have happened.”

Following several more speakers, Conn wrapped up the protest by encouraging attendees to call on City Council to slash the police department budget and invest in “real solutions,” such as an emergency response division, which could have prevented the violent arrest of an intoxicated unhoused man on the Downtown Mall earlier this month.

“We shouldn’t be criminalized for being human,” she said.

Updated 7/20