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Send a Letter to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and City Attorney Dennis
Herrera saying POLICE CANNOT BE EXEMPT from the Americans
with Disabilities Act!
A case before U.S. Supreme Court seeking police exemption from the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) has critical importance for all those seeking to stop unwarranted police killings. This
case involves police shootings of people with mental illnesses. Your intervention is needed to stop
the high court from using this case to strengthen the hand of the police and lessen police
accountability in the killings of people with disabilities. The ADA mandates accommodations for
those with disabilities.
Even with the ADA in place, at least half of the people shot and killed by police each year in this
country have mental health problems, according to a recent study by Treatment Advocacy Center
(http://tacreports.org/justifiable-homicides). In many cases, police who used deadly force were
called by family or neighbors to help get an individual mental health care. Many of those killed
were people of color. It would be especially chilling if police are exempted from the ADA.
Oral arguments in the case Sheehan v. San Francisco, brought before the Supreme Court by the
city of San Francisco, are set for March 23. More than 40 civil rights and disability activist groups
have signed a letter urging San Francisco officials to drop the appeal, warning that it imperils the
ADA, the most important piece of protective legislation that people with disabilities have. They
ask that concerned people join this write-in campaign.
Please join this crucial effort. Click the link below to e-mail San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and City
Attorney Dennis Herrera to urge them to drop their appeal (Text of Letter follows). The Americans
with Disabilities Act needs to be expanded and enforced, not gutted. Having a disability must not
be a death sentence!
http://iacboston.org/adasupremecourt.html
Initiated by Workers World Party: http://www.workers.org