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Statement

MomsRising Statement on Trump Plan to Fully Restore Military Surplus Transfers to Police Departments: ‘Trump is Proving Himself to Be the Cruel President We All Feared He Would Become’

August 28, 2017
Maternal Health

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Statement from Monifa Bandele, Vice President of MomsRising, a national organization of more than 1 million mothers and their families, on news that the Trump administration plans to reinstate in full a program that provides local police departments with military surplus equipment
“Our communities are not battlefields, and large-caliber weapons and military gear do not belong on our streets.
 
“It is not surprising that Trump, who ran a campaign that stoked racial violence, would arm the police with equipment to terrorize the citizens they are tasked to protect with new forms of brutality, turning our communities into occupation zones. With record-numbers of police murder of unarmed civilians in the past few years, the last thing we need is more weapons on our streets. It is both bad policy and bad for our communities.
 
“Local policing works best when there is police accountability to the communities they serve and strategies and policing models that deescalate violence at every opportunity. The moms of American know that escalating violence is not the direction our country should take and are opposed to Trump rolling back the limits on military gear in our communities.”
 

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.