Mother’s Speaking Out, our May 10th forum presenting NYC mothers concerned about abusive policing, was a dramatic and moving event. By telling personal stories, panelists illustrated how the NYPD’s use of racially-motivated and quota driven tactics harm their neighborhoods and families. “Using quotas to measure police performance subverts the principle of ‘protect and serve’,” said panelist Aisha Jordan, poet, performer and youth educator at Brotherhood-Sister Sol. “The police don’t protect us — we, as people, have to protect ourselves against the police.” The panel focused on on two key points: that the NYPD’s everyday harassment of young black and brown men has a devastating impact not only on them, but also on their loved ones and that the previously unheard voices of their mothers, wives and sisters are now speaking out loudly against these harsh and unjust tactics. Shahina Parveen, a leader with Desis Rising Up and Moving, also spoke about the NYPD’s targeting and surveillance of her son, who has an IQ of 78, simply because he is Muslim. He was entrapped, she said, charged with a serious offense and is now serving a long sentence in a New York State prison. Brooklyn NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery, the panel’s moderator and the mother of a grown son, stated: “I am not so afraid for my son of the drug dealers and gang bangers. I am more afraid of the police.”