Background: For the last few weeks, men in vehicles have been aggressively harassing lone women and trying to get them to go for a ride with them. I believe these could be rapists or human traffickers looking for fresh meat.

A community group has since formed. They refuse to involve police. They refuse to identify the suspects race.

The following are woke details from the community groups meeting:

Throughout the meeting BIPOC, Femme-identifying, queer, non-binary, trans* voices will take precedence, please be personally aware of allowing more vulnerable voices to be heard.

Priority is volunteers needed; bipoc / queer / 2 spirit / femmes to the front; volunteers sent out will never be solo cis males or pair of cis males.

Educate volunteers; they should be knowledgeable about their role; avoid unintentionally criminalizing other people/vulnerable populations in the neighbourhood

We’re not police; we should not be policing our communities. We need to host open forums, teach anti-oppression tactics, etc. Be good neighbours. Develop a response team that would include: Trained social workers To debrief in that moment Someone to talk to

TOPIC: POLICE PRESENCE Don’t think we should have an increase of police presence Make sure actions (of volunteers) don’t become vigilante Bad idea for multiple reasons A lot of people don’t feel safe with the police Even if they make arrests, nothing happens If the goal is to make the community safer, our aim should be de-escalation A bunch of other resources for after the fact other than calling the police Places that take you through the report (facilitator note we need to connect further with this individual) Opposed to police; instead we need a resource list for immediate numbers to call Make alternative resources available ASAP for those outside of our community Love that this is happening Bc we need a self sustaining community to protect ourselves Speaking on behalf of people of colour All black lives matter