Photo: A November 2018 meeting of the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee where we and our member groups, as always, have brought paper signs. Credit: ANSWER Indiana.
Wednesday, September 6
5:30P
City/County Building
Public Assembly Room, 2nd Floor
We are mobilizing our members and supporters to show up at the hearing on the Marion County Sheriff’s Office funding allocated in Mayor Hogsett’s proposed 2024 budget over the next few weeks. We resolutely oppose funding the very same entity that prevents the public from participating in public events and exercising our right to free speech, especially to the tune of $130 million.
We are not exaggerating. Two days after the Mayor proposed his $1.56 billion budget to the City-County Council, Marion County Sheriffs selectively prevented community members critical of the cops from entering into the room with paper signs.
ANSWER Indiana and other member groups of the Indianapolis Liberation Center have not once brought signs with sticks or poles into the council building for precisely that reason.
However, it wasn’t our signs that were threatening, it was our message. wasn’t the signs that were threatening, it was their messaging.
That is why it is crucial that we show out in force at the next meeting. The cops and councilors prevented us from bringing signs on Aug. 16, but they definitely won’t on Sept. 6.
It is not enough for them to deprive us of any substantive mechanisms to provide our input into the budget, they have to use the threat of force to prevent us from utilizing even superficial avenues like showing up at their meetings.
