Urge meaningful police reform from the IACP and the FOP

Two days before Christmas, 14-year-old Valentina Orellana Peralta was shopping with her mom at a department store in North Hollywood, CA. As she tried on clothes in a dressing room, nearby LAPD officers opened fire with their assault rifles in the store, seeking to subdue a subject. Their bullets went through the dressing room wall and hit Valentina.

Valentina died almost immediately in her mother’s arms – the collateral damage of an overly militarized police force!

Following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, millions took to the streets and demanded meaningful police reform. Unfortunately, today, we still have a system of policing that closely resembles a paramilitary force. It defaults to excessive force, which too often causes more civilian casualties than it prevents.

Like Breonna Taylor, who died in her home in what should have been a sanctuary, Valentina died in such an innocent way: shopping for Christmas gifts and clothing. Rather than assuming a department store — crowded with shoppers —would argue for the least amount of force possible to subdue a suspect, LAPD officers shot multiple rounds with assault weapons — and that cost young Valentina her life.

Valentina and her family came to the U.S. from Chile with hopes and dreams for a better life. Those dreams should not have been cut short by an overly aggressive, hyper-militarized police response. Meaningful police reform is well past due. It could and should be Valentina’s legacy.

When the U.S. Senate failed to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) issued a joint statement debunking some of the false objections that critics of the bill cited for their lack of support, saying, “Despite some media reports, at no point did any legislative draft propose ‘defunding the police.’ In fact, the legislation specifically provided additional funding to assist law enforcement agencies in training, agency accreditation, and data collection initiatives. It is our joint belief that the provisions under discussion would have strengthened the law enforcement profession and helped improve the state of community police engagement without compromising management and officers’ rights, authorities and legal protections.”

Please join us in breathing new life into the struggle to change community policing in America with enhanced training, standardized practices and protocols, demilitarizing police, and a commitment to default to the least force necessary to prevent loss of life.

Sign this petition and urge the IACP and the FOP to partner with us on meaningful police reform.