The first Tuesday of August, neighbors of communities from all fifty states take part in the National Night Out. Local police departments host block parties, festivals and other community activities. According to the event website, “National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.”
However, this cause is implausible when agencies fail to provide officers with policy guidance, hold officers accountable for misconduct and collect data about officer’s activities. Most problems arise when police patrol under-resourced neighborhoods. Patrolling is supposed to keep people safe but in reality patrolling forces residents to give up their rights and lose their sense of security within public and personal spaces. Policing is flawed because it profits from stopping, searching, ticketing, arresting and incarcerating people.
The District of Columbia is the capitol of the United States. Despite being the capitol, DC is not funded as it should be given its stature in America. Issues like food deserts, medical assistance, affordable housing, education funding and a poor infrastructure are serious problems for District residents. These topics all deal with public safety as they correspond to resident stability. A Night Out for Safety and Liberation is a community-driven alternative to the National Night Out. The event aims to create new understanding of public safety. Join us for: 
Night Out for Safety and Liberation
Tuesday, August 7
5pm – 9pm
Maroon House
1005 Rhode Island Avenue NE
Goals such as building connections with neighbors, ending mass incarceration and ending for-profit bail are designed to help community members re-imagine what public safety is. This event is aimed at giving power to the community and showing that we have a right to govern ourselves. We as a community should be able to depend on one another, lend a helping hand, tutor the mis-educated and defuse potentially violent situations. Equity, equality and power are the goals for redefining a community. Fear, prosecution and conflict should not be the main reactions to situations in the neighborhood. Instead, we should give power back to the community by shedding light on existing community resources and the variety of options available for achieving public safety.
It’s organizations like this that feed our people hate and negative energy. The police is not the problem it’s your organization and problematic people in our communities. We live in the inner city and sadly, this is where most black on black crime take place. So if the police choose to pull people over or search them because of suspicious activities I am all for it. That one car or person the police search may just be someone that had something to to with a crime or they could have been carrying an illegal gun. Does your organization want to make DC a little safer for the next generation or does your organization want to keep promoting hate, negativity, useless material that is toxic to our people? We need the police, we need safe streets, we need the police to do their jobs and enforce it. This type of mess do not happen in Virginia, certain county’s in Maryland (other than PG County and Baltimore City). I am tired of this Black organizations bring down our people like this one… instead your organization need to teach facts regardless of who you offend.
Thank you for your comment Sharon. I believe we do teach facts regardless of who we offend. In this case, it seems we’ve offended you. We are interested in your point of view. We’ve been working on a series of videos about the experience that folks have with the police. You can check them out at the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bClje-UVKg&list=PLLAcRDI9tZ__AVUGCpV69bCSdXiOV51eS
We’ll be collecting more at the Night Out for Safety and Liberation. You should come and let us record your experience.