Fight continues for ECPS

Chicago, IL – On June 23, over 150 people from the movement to stop police crimes and end police impunity rallied outside of Chicago City Hall before the city council meeting. “This should have been a meeting where ECPS would be voted on, where we are turning the people’s ordinance into the law of this city,” Kobi Guillory, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) explained, “but what happened on Friday is that certain alderpersons, acting at the behest of the mayor of this city, blocked our substitute ordinance from being put in, which stopped it from being voted on.”

Chicago, IL – 300 protesters showed up for the first in-person city council meeting in a year, April 21, to demand passage of an ordinance called Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS). Coming out of nine years of efforts by over 100 community organizations, labor unions, churches and other faith-based groups, the ordinance is a merger of two bills: CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council, proposed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression), and one proposed by GAPA (the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability). ECPS combines elements of the CPAC and GAPA bills to create the most democratic police accountability system in the country.