FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 9, 2014

Contacts:

CJ Frogozo, 310.570.2622, cj@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Madison Donzis, 210.488.6220, madison@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorofChange.org, issued the following statement:

“Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement is an important recognition of the harm and indignity of racial profiling and the many different ways law enforcement target and abuse Black, brown, LGBTQ, and Muslim communities every single day. But we are in a historic time, and our national leaders must do more than acknowledge today’s crisis and implement piecemeal reforms — they must do everything in their power to end it.

“These new guidelines are an important step in the right direction, but fall short of creating a strong and enforceable policy to address the universality of racial profiling and helping to end discriminatory and violent policing by all law enforcement agents. The guidelines have a limited impact on local and state police, and no impact on Border law enforcement. Racial profiling is unacceptable in all forms of law enforcement and we urge the DOJ to broaden the scope of the most recent guidelines.

“These guidelines would not have prevented the tragic and brutal deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Tanesha Anderson or ensured that their killers were held accountable.

“More than more than one million ColorOfChange members and their allies are calling on President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Darren Wilson, Officer Pantaleo, and all officers responsible for the death of Mike Brown and Eric Garner under federal criminal law.

“We urge the Department of Justice to implement a comprehensive, streamlined, public national-level database of police shootings, excessive force, killings, misconduct complaints, traffic and pedestrian stops, and arrests, broken down by race and other demographic data, with key privacy protections, the exclusion of personally identifying factors and information, and deportation immunity for civilians. We are also calling President Obama to pass an executive order that creates a strong and enforceable prohibition on police brutality and discriminatory policing based on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, and housing status.”

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With over 900,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.