Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, President and Co-Founder of Center for Policing Equity, released the following statement in commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the shooting death of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri:
“Michael Brown Jr.‘s shooting death shook our nation. Not that we didn’t know that Black and Brown people were being shot by bad police officers and mistreated in the criminal justice system, but with every hour that his lifeless body lay in the Ferguson, Missouri sun, we felt a growing sense of dread that our disgust would turn to rage.
While the response from political leaders eventually showed promise and funding began to flow toward reform, the progress seems to have stalled. Slowly but surely national attention has moved away from policing even as broader criminal justice reform continues. And, as we observe this fourth anniversary it is imperative that we shift that attention back to policing—and into full gear.
The fire that was ignited four years ago for change still burns strong in communities too long ignored, and so must our focus on police reform. That means we must fund police reform, promote police reform, and make sure that police reform is never divorced from the larger efforts to align our criminal legal systems with our values—on this anniversary of tragedy and resistance, and on every other day.”
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