Some photos, notes, and audio recording from Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality's workshop on the first day of the Social Forum. More information about their work is available here and here. Audio recorded from the workshop is available here, or through the player below. You can find their vides on youtube here.
During the Aiyana Jones murder, Granada Productions was filming for the A&E show 'First 48'. DCAPB has received anonymous calls from the cops that the crew was encouraging the cops to take particularly militaristic steps before Aiyana's death.
The organization discussed the murder of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, and the infiltration of west side detoit muslim community organization by the FBI. Imam Luqman was shot 23 times by FBI agents. The FBI refuses to release information about evidence of raid, and claimed that he was connected to Islamic domestic terrorism. Law enforcement is becoming more and more repressive. There is no difference between murder of Imam Luqman and Aiyanna Jones. International wars lead to construction and labelling of domestic terrorism in US. In order to justify the massive expense of war and security, they have to identify, prosecute and kill 'terrorists' and militarize the cities and the border.
There is a long history of repression in Detroit. Coming together of DPD, border patrol, state, homeland security, massive policing. The community has been fighting for a very long time. Sandra Heinz: "We don't throw the towel in when it comes to our rights. We fight hard."
Working on community healing and violence reduction. DCAPB is dealing with the re-establishment of community. Building community reduces police brutality, destroyed communities can be victimized. If communities resolve their own issues, the police become irrelevant. If the police don't have to come in, we resolve police brutality. Peace Zones for Life were born out of the death of Robert Mitchell, a young man who died after being tazed by police. People came out to fight his death to the same degree as Aiyana Jones. 
DCAPB believes that this whole conference is about transforming things from the ground up. This is a movement period. The contradictions are so heavy. What we do on a day to day basis is not hold protests, what we do has an impact on people's survival and fight for transformation.
We have to embrace young people so they can take our place. We have to mentor, do know your rights with young people, go to court and work on finding lawyers, and offer support at every level.
The corporate community runs Detroit's political system. We're still trying to rise above the many layers of corruption.
How do we build a national movement? 3 ways, USSF is opportunity to connect. Internet provides opportunity for communication infrastructure. We need to build networks, connect with each others local struggles. We need to challenge gang intelligence units. We can challenge these units, and multi-jurisdictional task forces. We have to share information as do the cops.
Police brutality is police terror, which is a human rights issue. Ultimately, we need to deal with this at the United Nations.
How do we prioritize leadership of most affected communities? Bring organizers from communities of color to come in and build organization. You have to organize for yourself, self-determination is central.
