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Oakland, California school district abolishes school police department

OPINION: The Oakland Unified School District [1] in California abolished its own police department [2] last night during a school board meeting in which it submitted to the wishes of radical left-wingers.

The “George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate Oakland Schools Police Department” was passed in a unanimous vote, according to The Mercury News [3]. The board decided that the $2.5 million that is spent each year on the police department, which consisted of ten officers and administrators, will now be redirected toward other student support services and restorative justice efforts.

Almost thirty speakers addressed the board during the meeting, and all of them in favor of abolishing the police department. One of the speakers was Jessica Black, the organizer of the Black Organizing Project, which she said has been fighting for a decade to get rid of the police department. “This isn’t just a small drop in the bucket. It’s a historical moment,” she said. “We’re still fighting to understand what true freedom in this country looks like. Abolishing that system is critically important.”

“I just want to say the community is hella happy right now. This is history in the making y’all,” added student board member Denilson Garibo.

This comes after San Francisco schools voted to sever ties with the city’s police department, according to the San Francisco Chronicle [4]. “I’ve always been leery of having police in our schools, just because of the history of interactions with police in general with communities of colors,” school board President Mark Sanchez said prior to the vote. “I don’t want to have an official relationship with them.”

Anti-police sentiments have been at an all-time high in this country ever since the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota last month. Since then, liberals have launched the “defund the police” movement, seemingly trying to do away with police altogether, despite the fact that we as a society depend on them to keep us safe every day.

This piece was written by PoliZette Staff on June 25, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette [5] and is used by permission.