“Ma’Khia Bryant should be alive today. The police were called to calm the situation, not shoot and kill a child. There were alternatives – an endless number of alternatives – to using deadly force against a 16-year-old girl. Yet again police used unnecessary, unjustifiable lethal force against a person of color, with a tragic result.

“The parade of Black and Brown people lost to police violence, that now includes Ma’Khia Bryant and Andrew Brown Jr., is as relentless as it is tragic -- and it must end. The white supremacy and systemic racism that pervades policing in this country cannot be allowed to continue. It is robbing us of children, parents, the people we love and hold dear, as well as our decency and dignity as a country. Moms do not want to raise children in a country where those charged with our protection continually devalue and take Black and Brown lives.

“Time will tell whether this week’s guilty verdict against Derek Chauvin was an inflection point or an aberration in terms of accountability, but we don’t need time to tell us that police continue to murder Black and Brown people in this country day after day after day. That must end. It is unacceptable that police respond to calls for help from people in communities of color with lethal force, rather than with the de-escalation they use when called to help in white communities. It is no wonder that Black and Brown children have learned to fear, rather than trust or rely on, police.

“It’s past time we shift resources and invest in community safety and supports instead of investing in police who do not keep us safe and reforms that do not work.

"We need a major investment in the kind of care infrastructure that helps communities thrive. MomsRising supports key components of the BREATHE Act - a better approach than the Justice in Policing Act because it divests from primarily funding law enforcement and the carceral state, creates a new approach to community safety, invests in our communities, and builds real accountability.”