LAJC & PHAR Request C’Ville Investigation

Contact:
Tim Wallace
Director of Development
434-529-1853 | twallace@justice4all.org

LAJC Sends Letter on Behalf of PHAR Urging Open Investigation, Better Emergency Planning,  and Investment in Communities of Color

Charlottesville, Va., August 23, 2017—

In a letter dated August 22, 2017, written on behalf of the Public Housing Association of Residents (“PHAR”), the Legal Aid Justice Center (“LAJC”) called upon the Charlottesville City Council, City Manager Maurice Jones and Police Chief Al Thomas to embrace an open and transparent investigation of police practices related to both July 8 and the weekend of August 12.  

They ask that the investigation be deeply informed by the affected residents and undertaken in a spirit of openness, not defensiveness, to ask the many pressing questions about what went wrong including:

• Did the City order law enforcement, including the Virginia State Police and National Guard, to stand down in the face of violence?  Did someone else issue such an order? If no order was given, why did law enforcement officers stand down?
• What contingency plans did the city prepare prior to this weekend’s events in relation to protecting the families in subsidized housing properties in the City? 
• What safety plans were created related to the weekend of August 12 to protect the most vulnerable members of our community?

LAJC’s letter calls upon the City to: commit to this investigation; improve its emergency planning as it relates to the low-income community; and take concrete steps to eradicate institutional racism in this community. 

To read the letter, click here:

 About the Legal Aid Justice Center
The Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) fights injustice in the lives of individual Virginians while rooting out the inequities that keep people in poverty through litigation, policy advocacy, and community organizing.   LAJC’s Civil Rights and Racial Justice Program works to end the criminalization of poverty in Virginia by exposing and addressing the connections among policing, poverty, race, and injustice.

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