Since the George Floyd rebellions of 2020, policing has been on a deadly rise. Since the battle in Atlanta, Georgia around the construction of “Cop City” has come to a head, over 80 different cop city-like “deadly exchange” programs are either sited for construction or already breaking ground. Organizers across the US have come together to Stop Cop Nation, and CR has played a pivotal role in building out the national network—sharing strategic moves from our past successful campaigns to stop gang injunctions in the Bay Area, defund the largest weapons, militarized policing and SWAT training exhibition in the world known as Urban Shield, and substantially defund the Portland police department while disbanding its gang policing unit.
Throughout 2024, CR members have continued to provide the political education support to our movement partners that is needed to build an international movement to abolish policing—anti-policing organizing that CR began doing consistently more than 15 years ago. In 2024, CR members in the Bay Area facilitated a series of campaign development sessions for the Healthcare Workers for Abolition coalition (formerly DPH Must Divest) who are working to get the sheriff department out of San Francisco’s hospitals and medical system.
CR has also joined close comrades in Atlanta to further develop a new iteration of an existing campaign to end the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), one of the longest running deadly-exchange policing programs that is run by Georgia State University and that facilitates US cops to train with the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF). In addition to supporting some local events, this year, CR facilitated strategic planning and campaign development for the Demilitarize Atlanta to Palestine Coalition (DA2P) to best position itself to abolish GILEE once for all. Shutting down GILEE would be a critical step towards eliminating deadly-exchange programs and the expansion of the police state in Atlanta, while creating a model for international solidarity with Palestinian and global liberation.
On the west coast, since our previous victory in the Care Not Cops campaign in 2020, CR Portland (CRPDX) has also been rebuilding its membership and community relationships to soon launch another anti-policing campaign targeting drug criminalization and local war-on-drugs policing approaches that are sweeping the city and devastating houseless communities. As part of this effort, CRPDX convened community members this past April for an open house and community discussion on the state of policing from Portland to Palestine, drawing connections between US policing and Israel’s role in global repression and militarization. This summer, the chapter then hosted CR’s Abolition of Policing workshop that we developed in 2009 in the aftermath of the Oscar Grant rebellions in Oakland and have since facilitated to movement partners around the world. The stage is set, and the moment is ripe for CRPDX to once again pick up the torch and combat policing in the Pacific Northwest. Stay tuned for how to get involved!
We must remember in these harrowing times that a fascist autocrat like Trump cannot enact destructive, draconian policies without police goons to do the dirty work, rounding our people up. We know the terrain before us has more flashpoints of resistance and rebellion as the violence of policing and militarism work to stifle dissent and orchestrate the people’s obedience in a new far-right regime. From Atlanta to the Bay Area, to occupied Palestine and beyond, the movement for abolition will weather the storm and work to dismantle cop cities that strangle the environment, endanger our futures, and make war on our communities.
Thank you for your ongoing support of CR anti-policing campaigns and network organizing! We invite you to make a monthly gift or provide a one-time donation this December to sustain this work and more through 2025 and onward.
In struggle and solidarity,
-Critical Resistance
Curious what else CR has been up to in 2024? Check out our year-end letter rounding up all the work we’ve done here.
For over 25 years, your contributions of time, effort, and funds have empowered CR to run campaigns against policing, imprisonment, and surveillance; create tools to strengthen abolitionist organizing and analysis; build and strengthen connections with movement partners across our interconnected fights; and more. Keep CR strong over the next decades of abolitionist work! We invite you to become a monthly sustainer today and continue contributing to the long-haul project of PIC abolition.
This year-end season, we are working to raise $90,000 across the entire organization for our chapters, projects, and overall movement building work. We aim to raise –
- $56,000 for the organization at-large
- $15,000 for The Zachary Project, a mutual aid fund for community organizers
- $10,000 for CR’s New York City chapter
- $3,500 for CR’s Oakland chapter
- $3,500 for CR’s Los Angeles chapter
- $2,000 for CR’s Portland chapter
- $1,000 for The Abolitionist newspaper through 100 new paid subscribers at $10 each or more! Each paid subscription by outside supporters sponsors free subscriptions for multiple people locked up inside prisons, jails, and detention centers.
We appreciate donations of your time, effort, and funds to sustain our organizing, this year and the next!