Justice Teams Network Holds Police Accountable Across CA

Across the United States, police and other law enforcement consistently shoot and kill thousands of people each year without accountability. In California, nearly 200 people were affected by this state violence last year, having disastrous ripple effects on their families and communities.

Through radical dreaming, the Justice Teams Network (JTN) was founded in 2015 to connect grassroots and community-led organizations, coordinate resources and strategies, and strengthen their overall impact and resilience to respond to state violence. Justice Teams Network came to Tides Advocacy to create a sophisticated operational infrastructure, partnering with us on finance, human resources and payroll, and legal compliance.

JTN is a coalition made up of numerous organizations doing critical work against state terror. These groups include Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Law Enforcement Accountability Network, Just Love Coalition, Dignity & Power Now, Black Lives Matter Sacramento and the Anti Police-Terror Project. They are led by the people most impacted by injustice, and they are the spirit of JTN. The coalition has four approaches: rapid response, healing justice, grassroots organizing, and policy campaigns.

With Tides Advocacy, JTN was able to quickly scale up a shared platform to connect their work, build a solid model for collaboration and capacity-building, and raise the profile of member organizations’ work in order to mobilize resources where they are most urgently needed.

Justice Teams Network Education Fund at Tides Foundation supports grassroots organizing and education work. Justice Teams Network, housed at Tides Advocacy, runs effective legislative and electoral campaigns. Senior Advisor Kathryn Snyder and the Tides Advocacy team help them navigate the complexities of legal compliance, fundraising, financial management, and human resources. By being plugged into our 25-year progressive network, they are also able to make connections that lead to additional resources.

Meeting with Kathryn has helped us connect with other organizations and given us opportunities to network and share our work. – Annie Banks, Justice Teams Network

They are engaged in legislative work across California, including an ongoing campaign to repeal the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, which shields officers’ history from public scrutiny and is the single largest obstacle to police accountability. They were also recently successful in getting a ballot measure on Los Angeles County’s 2020 ballot to increase the power of the Civilian Oversight Commission to investigate deputy misconduct.

Through Tides Advocacy’s expertise and network, JTN has grown at an unprecedented rate and they are on a course to change police accountability and continue to support victims and survivors when they need it most.