The Advocate

 *CONTENT NOTICE/TRIGGER WARNING: this post discussed racist police violence and contains links to images/videos of that content.* (“Stop Police Brutality” by Icy and Sot) On November 21, at around 11:10 AM, an unnamed SLPD officer tased an innocent and mentally ill member of our city's unsheltered community in another act of police brutality in our city. This happened within less than 30 seconds from when the officer first made contact with the victim. The officer was ostensibly responding to a complaint from a local business, the Downtown McDonald's, about an allegation of someone "acting crazy" and "throwing punches." However, no one was hurt. No property was destroyed. No one was armed. There was no reason or basis to assume the victim posed a danger to themselves or others. Even worse, despite assertions to the contrary by SLPD, the officer did not engage in deescalation or crisis intervention tactics. There is no evidence that the CATT program was call

Please watch this 10 minute clip from CNN on how effective and innovative the Street Crisis Response Team in San Francisco has been, as well as interviews with Steven Taylor's grandmother Addie Kitchen, who tell us that a program like this in San Leandro could have prevented his murder at the hands of former SLPD Officer Jason Fletcher. Click here for link. This program is not just cost-effective compared to traditional policing, but it actually solves problems in a sustainable and ethical way. The CATT program in Alameda is insufficient because it keeps police officers as the first point of contact and leaves it to their judgement on whether to call in a CATT team in situations that they have no expertise with. This is what defund the police means in action. This is what trauma-informed care looks like. This is how we deal with mental health crises. This is the model we need to be using in San Leandro and scaling it up to include other issues that police are not trained or equippe

(Credit) This is a prose poem. Please do not confuse the art with the artist by projecting the contents of the character into the creator. Begin rant/ I'm no longer on my antidepressant. I still take the Xanax though. My therapist, who I was finally starting to get comfortable with after months, has moved away for a new job. So I've stopped therapy completely. I treat my psychiatrist like a mushroom because he doesn't seem interested in me. I feel like my treatment has helped me as much by not helping me as it has by helping me. I still have intrusive thoughts about terrible things. I still exhibit hyper-vigilance. I still worry excessively about my shit and piss and bathrooms and wearing protective garments. Yet now I have stopped putting myself down for past my behavior when I was a child. I give myself space to try and openly be sad, to feel things, to not be perfect. Some days I even feel truly, unconditionally, and briefly happy. Especially with my infant. Still, I al