Support and Safety

I was working two doors down from the building where Abdirahman Abdi was killed, on the day that he was killed. The officials tried to get information on the chase from the security cameras in my office. I cannot tell you how sad and angry I still am to think about this violence happening in my neighbourhood. Especially knowing that better mental health crisis intervention, rather than the summoning of police as a first line of response, could have saved his life. And most especially suspecting that his identity as a racialized person made him a target for ill-treatment by police that day. We need to focus our community safety on non-police responses, and resource those responses accordingly. Keeping people in housing and mental health care, and out of poverty, will do so much to keep us all safe.