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The past 72 hours have been some of the most traumatic times we’ve had in Lancaster county in recent memory. We are all processing what has occurred and how we heal and move forward together as a community.
Alexa Wise: https://gf.me/u/yy7f5p
Yoshua Montague: https://gf.me/u/yy3wbh
Cashapp: $Shacura26
Jamal Newman: https://gf.me/u/yy232x
Cashapp: $SadikaWilson
Jessica Lopez: https://gf.me/u/yzpnug
Cashapp: $mlo626
Taylor Enterline: https://gf.me/u/yy2x67
CashApp: $TajahN35
Venmo: Tyler-Hamler
Kat Patterson: https://gf.me/u/yyw4by
On Sunday afternoon, Lancaster City Police Department sent a lone, armed police officer to meet Ricardo Munoz, who was suffering an acute mental health crisis, after his sister placed a non-emergency call concerned about his well-being and the well-being of her mother. Arriving on the scene alone and unprepared to de-escalate the situation, the officer shot and killed Munoz after Munoz charged the officer with a knife.
Residents gathered and protests built throughout the day. All summer members of our community (and Lancaster Stands Up) have been organizing protests demanding changes to policing, criminal justice reform, and accountability. Munoz’s tragic death underscores the failures of our system.
Though the protests on Sunday were mostly peaceful, that night there were incidents of escalation and property damage. It is unclear who caused the damage or their relationship to the protest, but police seem to have made arrests of whoever they could grab in the vicinity.
On Monday and Tuesday, District Attorney Heather Adams filed outrageous and politically motivated charges against those protesting our broken policing system, clearly aiming to intimidate other community members from speaking out and calling for change.
Now it’s up to us to help our neighbors defend themselves from trumped up charges and exorbitant.