Youth Activists Push for Police Accountability
On a Saturday afternoon in March, two weeks before quarantine, high school activist and YA-YA member Amirat Maiyegun addressed a crowded room at a community center in Brooklyn. “The wrong people have too much control over our safety and not enough accountability” she said, evoking shouts of support from an audience of Highland Park and East New York residents. The event, a forum organized by the Elected Civilian Review Board, was part of the growing movement to hold the NYPD accountable for crimes committed against low-income and minority communities.
On a panel alongside Council Member Inez Barron, Juanita Young, and representatives of the Brooklyn Defenders and Community Board 5, Amirat spoke about the unchecked power of law enforcement agents in NYC public schools. “The NYPD disregards the Student Safety Laws that require the NYPD to report information…they have refused to provide this information to the City Council. The NYPD has more control over school safety than the DOE.”
Amirat and panel members speak on the importance of having an Elected Civilian Review Board, March 7, 2020
Photo by Divine Ndombo
Amirat also spoke about the ineffectiveness and corruption of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), supporting new efforts to replace the CCRB with an adjudicating body of publicly elected civilian representatives, “The CCRB is not given a platform to keep reported police officers and the NYPD accountable so we, the public, cannot challenge this injustice to the very organization created to protect us.”
Amirat, a junior at Brooklyn Collaborative High School, is one of eight youth organizers leading YA-YA’s campaign to reform Chancellor’s Regulation A-432, the policy that defines the use of law enforcement in NYC public schools.
If Chancellor’s Regulation A-432 is rewritten with language that sets clearer and specific limits on law enforcement activity, students will be better able to protect themselves when their rights are violated.
Young people are once again bearing the brunt of a system that values policing over social and academic support. If the FY21 Executive Budget is passed, public schools will lose $641 million in the next year, and nearly $2 billion over the next four years.
This budget is not final and there is still time to push back. We have to let City Council know we will not stand for a budget that cuts hundreds of millions from classrooms and critical programs, while simultaneously investing hundreds of millions in expanding school policing. Click here to learn more about the campaign for an Elected Civilian Review Board.
Amirat with Inez Barron on ECRB campaign panel, March 7 2020
Photo by Jacquelin Woo
Inez Barron campaigns for an Elected Civilian Review Board, March 25, 2021
Photo by Dean Moses
