STATEMENT FROM DRESSMAN BENZINGER LAVELLE PSC


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DBL Law stands with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. While we cannot comprehend the pain, fear, and anger you are experiencing, we offer our deepest sympathies, our love, and our commitment to profound and systemic change.

The recent events are, unfortunately, nothing new. Floyd, Taylor, and Arbery join a long list – Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Emmett Till, and too many others, known and unknown, of Black and Brown men and women who have died at the hands of the government or racist elements that the government would not control. The United States has never come to terms with its racist past, with its four hundred years of slavery, Jim Crow, and malignant neglect.

The time for change is long overdue, but it is now. We stand, listen, speak, and march in solidarity with those fighting for equal justice. Black Lives Matter. We must fight to change the criminal justice system so that minority defendants are treated with true equality, dignity, and due process, and for an end to income and wealth inequality between races in the United States. We must make our country one that lives up to its promise that all men and women are created equal.

We cannot let anyone distract us from this mission. Some would hide from their moral obligations by pointing to looters or those who do not understand that protest must always be non-violent. Others would seek political points by crying out for law and order. We must not be deterred from our ethical responsibility to treat our neighbor as ourselves.

As Dr. King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We call out racism where we see it, and we do so today. We strive to ensure that George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery did not die in vain, and that the pain their families and our community feel now be someday replaced by the recognition that their deaths moved this nation toward justice.