Calling for Police Accountability and Policy Against Excessive Force

We are starting the year with a mix of both determination and heavy hearts as we are ever-committed to the well-being of the Newark community, and again struck by the anger and heartbreak of losing more Black people at the hands of police - nationally and here at home.

Victoria Foundation signed on to a letter with other community leaders in Newark, sharing our support of a number of measures for police accountability and to curb excessive and brutal force, and ultimately for reinvestment in communities that follow community priorities.

Published in NJ Spotlight, read the full statement

"We join those across the state and country mourning the death of Tyre Nichols, who tragically lost his life at the hands of police violence. We as the collective social and philanthropic organizations serving the Newark community are once again saddened by the senseless loss of life. We also applaud Mayor Ras Baraka's office in continuing the probe of the death of Carl Dorsey III, who was shot on New Year's Day, 2021, unarmed.

We as a community continue to be outraged by the targeting of Black and brown people at the hands of police violence. Since Jan. 1, 2023, 110 individuals have died as a result of being shot by a police officer.

We join the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice's call for New Jersey to pass the ban on deadly chokeholds and establish civilian review boards in order to hold police accountable. We also urge our federal legislators to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which enhances existing enforcement mechanisms to remedy violations by law enforcement. Among other things, it also lowers the criminal intent standard — from willful to knowing or reckless — to convict a law enforcement officer for misconduct in a federal prosecution; limits qualified immunity as a defense to liability in a private civil action against a law enforcement officer, and grants administrative subpoena power to the Department of Justice in pattern-or-practice investigations…"

Read the full statement