In September, Portland, Oregon, became the latest city targeted by the Trump administration’s haphazard National Guard troop deployment, an immigration enforcement tactic that is undermining public safety. In an interview with Filter Magazine, CPE’s CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon explains how such militarized campaigns target and harm vulnerable communities.
Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon, co-founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity, agrees that Trump’s militarized campaigns create the opposite of “public safety,” especially for marginalized groups.
“These continued actions by the Trump Administration, despite decreasing rates of crime, nullify the will of voters and local elected officials,” he told Filter. “It replaces local accountability with a system of federal force, escalating conflict and endangering the very communities and officers it claims to protect.”
“Furthermore, this approach is a weaponization of law enforcement against people in crisis,” Solomon continued. “These deployments will harm housing-insecure people, as well as those suffering from mental health issues, treating them as enemies to be eradicated from society, rather than neighbors in need of support and care. Make no mistake, this is the politics of division and domination, not that of safety.”
Read the full article on Filter’s website.