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RT @ReproRights: “Its tacit approval of surveillance, in particular, makes people of color more vulnerable in a legal system where t… https://t.co/a1pyJSEXlE

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Cedric Watkins is a father, uncle, entrepreneur-in-training, and a vital community pillar for many others. While behind bars, he has tirelessly devoted himself to serving his peers and his community. He developed gang disaffiliation programs for other incarcerated individuals and is currently involved with Defy Ventures. He sends letters and calls his daughter as much as he can.

Cedric is currently in prison at Sterling Correctional Facility. He was convicted of aggravated robbery, burglary, kidnapping, theft and sentenced to 80 years; no one was seriously injured or killed. For comparison, a person convicted of second-degree murder in Colorado faces a maximum sentence of 48 years. Cedric has already served 20 years and has fully rehabilitated during that time.

It’s time to bring Cedric home: acluco.org/redemption. Redemption is real. Clemency is compassion.
On November 21, 2016, 13 Aurora police officers responded to a simple noise complaint at Alberto Torres’s home. As happens all too often, Aurora police officers escalated this minor issue into a brutal affair. They beat Mr. Torres solely because he delayed exiting his garage to ask his wife to interpret for him. With that beating, the lives of Mr. Torres and every member of his family were changed and he has yet to recover. ACLU of Colorado fought to obtain justice for Mr. Torres, and Aurora has now paid him $285,000. But money is not justice, and the brutality of the Aurora Police Department against people of color has continued unabated.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Imagine, if instead of 13 officers being dispatched to Mr. Torres’s home for a noise complaint, the City of Aurora sent a civilian-led response team to check on his welfare and ask that he and his friends lower their sound, resulting in a non-violent solution to a minor issue?

ACLU Settles Case With Aurora After Police Brutalize and Unlawfully Arrest Alberto Torres
Hope is a discipline. It’s a commitment that together, we can create a more perfect union. We won’t rest until we fulfill the promise of equal rights for ALL people in the United States.

Join us in our fight to fulfill this promise and move forward with hope by donating to the ACLU of Colorado. Your donation supports the ACLU’s strengths that make our work effective and collaborative.

Donate now at https://action.aclu.org/give/support-aclu-colorado
Anthony Martinez is 84-years-old and suffering from renal failure, as well as other serious medical conditions including dementia. He is currently incarcerated in the Sterling Correctional Facility, site of one of Colorado’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks with almost 600 active COVID-19 cases. He and his family are understandably terrified that he will catch the virus and die.

In the midst of this public health crisis, incarcerated people as vulnerable as Anthony, could and should be immediately released to safely live out their remaining years with family.

Read more about Anthony Martinez and other at-risk incarcerated people.

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8.20.10

Antiwar sign can stay, Salida says, avoiding federal court faceoff with ACLU attorneys

The City of Salida avoided a federal court battle with ACLU attorneys yesterday, when it withdrew its threat to enforce its sign code against Debra Juchem, a local resident and business owner who erected an antiwar sign on the side of her downtown building. The sign says “Kill one person and it’s MURDER. Kill thousands and it’s FOREIGN POLICY. STOP THE IRAQ WAR NOW!” Several week ago, the City of Salida informed Ms. Juchem that the sign violates the City’s municipal.... | Read More

8.20.10

ACLU lawyers file suit on behalf of innocent woman wrongfully arrested, jailed, and strip searched

Lawyers for the ACLU of Colorado filed suit today on behalf of Mercedes Archuleta, a Thornton mother of nine children with no criminal record whom Lakewood police wrongly and groundlessly listed in a warrant as a suspect in a misdemeanor harassment case. According to the complaint, a state trooper found the erroneous warrant when he stopped Ms. Archuleta’s husband for a minor traffic violation. The officer pulled Ms. Archuleta rudely from her car while she was nursing her baby, handcuffed.... | Read More

8.19.10

ACLU of Colorado applauds California judge

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional because of the limits it places on free speech. The case, U.S. vs. Alvarez, involved a defendant’s false claim that he had won a Congressional Medal of Honor. Under the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime for a person to falsely claim to have been awarded military decorations, his lie is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. The ACLU of Colorado applauds the ruling. Judge Milan.... | Read More