writing, to me, is so important 'cause it allows me to think publicly about ideas that I'm working through as a lawyer or I'm working through as an o… - Derecka Purnell

we called 911 because it was often the default response to a lot of harm that we were facing in our homes, in our families when fights broke out, when someone needed medical assistance. It was the only resource, and so it became the default resource. There were no clinics in my neighborhood, no grocery stores. The last grocery store in that neighborhood closed down in the year 2000. There hasn't been a fresh food source since, right? And so there were all these unhealthy, toxic pieces of our environment that made us sick that - there were stressors that made us fight. So 911 became the go-to response to solve a lot of these crises that could have been prevented.

I had to understand the history of police inadequacy to these harms and then learn that, well, the police weren't created to respond to these harms in

as a trained lawyer, what I try to do is use my legal skills to help organizers figure out how to wage campaigns against oppressive institutions. Sometimes that means reducing power for the police. Sometimes it means trying to close a jail or a prison.