The Peaceful Streets Project Police Accountability Summit

August 2, 2013August 2, 2013 CopBlock 576 Views Activism, antonio buehler, austin, austin police department, Austin TX, B. Dolan, Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale, Carlos Miller, community, copblock.org, Featured, film the police, know your rights, Peaceful Street Project, Pete Eyre, photography is not a crime, police abuse, police accountability, police accountability summit, Police State, Radley Balko, Tatiana Moroz, Texas

This post was written by Antonio Buehler, co-founder of the the Peaceful Streets Project.

The Peaceful Streets Project will be holding their 2nd Annual Police Accountability Summit on Saturday, August 17th at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin, Texas. The summit will be a celebration of the people who have been coming together to fight police abuse throughout the country, a place where victims of police abuse can come together to gain strength through community, and an educational experience that will leave participants with an arsenal of peaceful direct action tactics to use against criminal cops, as well as a greater appreciation for the struggle we are engaged in.

Last year’s summit was a great success and put into motion a chain of events that exposed the criminal nature of the Austin Police Department and other police departments throughout the country, forced police to alter their tactics, and emboldened activists throughout the country to stand up to criminal cops. Over the past year the Peaceful Streets Project has led over a dozen Know Your Rights training sessions, provided a platform for scores of victims of police abuse to tell their stories, organized over 100 cop watches, and grown from a local effort in Austin into a national movement with over a dozen chapters from Manchester (NH) to Honolulu (HI).

This year’s summit is going to be even better than last year’s! The 2nd Annual Peaceful Streets Project Police Accountability Summit will be an entertaining, educational and empowering experience for the community, and will serve as a celebration of our wildly successful year in the struggle against police abuse. We will be bringing in activists, speakers and entertainers from all over the country for this powerful event.

Headlining the event is keynote speaker Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party and long-time police accountability activist. In an attempt to aid African-American victims of police brutality and racial prejudice, Seale and the Black Panther Party pioneered the practice of cop watch by following police officers in their community, often times carrying rifles. As part of his speech, Seale will talk about how the camera is now a more powerful weapon against police abuse than the rifle was then.

The second keynote speech will come from Radley Balko, writer for the Huffington Post and author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Force. Other speakers include Carlos Miller of PhotographyIsNotACrime.com, Pete Eyre of CopBlock.org and Antonio Buehler and John Bush, co-founders of the Peaceful Streets Project. Entertainers include B. Dolan who will perform Film the Police and Tatiana Moroz who will perform a song written for the Peaceful Streets Project.

Other activities will include a panel on family pets killed by law enforcement, a debate over whether we should try to reform the police or abolish them, Know Your Rights training, tactics for filming police and a movie screening. Food and refreshments will be provided, and there will be free childcare on site for families who attend.

Learn more about the summit at: http://peacefulstreets.com/summit-2013/
Help support us by donating at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/2nd-annual-peaceful-streets-project-police-accountability-summit

Antonio Buehler