After North Miami Beach Police Department was caught using mugshots of African-American suspects for target practice, pastors started a movement, volunteering their pictures to be used at the shooting range.
The religious leaders’ campaign started with a Facebook discussion, trying to come up with a way “to make it harder to pull the trigger,” the Washington Post reports.
“Maybe we ought it make it harder to pull the trigger, and volunteer to put pictures of their family up,” Rev. Joy N. Gonnerman said. Then she said she would send a photo of herself to the North Miami Beach Police Department.
— PrJGonnerman (@JoyGonnerman) January 17, 2015
Along with Rev. Lura N. Groen of Houston, she created a Facebook event and invited friends to post pictures of themselves in clerical clothing, to symbolize peace and love. The event evolved to tweets with the hashtag #UseMeInstead.
— Lura Groen (@lura_groen) January 18, 2015
— Tom Ryberg (@tomryberg) January 26, 2015
— Marguerite (@margcellent) January 26, 2015
“It’s such a desensitization thing, that if you start aiming at young black men, and told to put a bullet in them, you become desensitized,” Gonnerman told the Post. “Maybe, to change the picture, it’s you know what, dare ya, shoot a clergy person.”
— Lauren R. Stanley (@laurenrstanley) January 25, 2015
— Thalwen (@Thalwen) January 18, 2015
North Miami Police department replied saying they are “not interested in using any real people’s images.”
