Friend –

With Donald Trump waging war on free speech and ICE officers killing people in broad daylight, our right to protest is more important than ever.

But too often when New Yorkers take to the streets to speak out, they are met with NYPD violence. Often, the officers leading the anti-protest charge are part of the NYPD's notoriously brutal Strategic Response Group, or "the SRG."

ADD MY NAME: Tell the City Council to curb the SRG's violence by holding a hearing on the Communities United to Reject Brutality (CURB) Act.

The SRG's training specifically names anti-Trump demonstrators, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Occupy Wall Street as examples of "violent" protesters. The unit's members have demonstrated a clear pattern of targeting people of color, using excessive force, and generating higher rates of misconduct complaints compared to other officers.

The NYPD has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on the SRG's budget, and the city has doled out millions more on legal settlements stemming from SRG misconduct. This and the unit's rampant brutality have led to calls to disband the SRG and reinvest its funding in programs and services that actually keep New Yorkers safe.

The CURB Act would end the SRG's deployment at protests while also banning the unit's most notorious, aggressive, and unwarranted tactics. It would prohibit the NYPD from "kettling" or trapping and then forcibly arresting protesters, deploying tear gas, indiscriminately targeting protesters with pepper spray, and using ear-splitting acoustic weapons like long-range acoustic devices.

Critically, the CURB Act would also prevent the NYPD from deploying any other unit that operates like the SRG against demonstrators. And it would make it easier for public officials to hold the unit accountable for abusing New Yorkers.

The next step in this campaign is to get the City Council to schedule a hearing on this vital bill.

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Council to call a hearing on the CURB Act to end the SRG's violence.

Thank you for fighting for the right to protest in New York.

Isabelle Leyva
Pronouns: she, her, hers
Organizing Campaign Strategist, NYCLU