In light of the recent events that have taken place in the United States—the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor; along with the public outcry—AAMI has spoken out against racism and intolerance. Read a snippet of the association’s statement below:
AAMI supports the eradication of racism and intolerance in our culture and we stand with those across the globe peacefully protesting for positive change. This moment demands that we move beyond raising awareness and offering statements of support in order to create meaningful and lasting transformation. Large and small organizations nationwide—both civil and governmental—have a responsibility to act so that increased awareness becomes real change. To this end, AAMI is beginning with the following steps:
1. As a standards developing organization, AAMI will collaborate as requested with other standards organizations if a broad stakeholder base determines that national voluntary consensus standards may be beneficial to law enforcement.
2. AAMI will deploy internal programs to help our employees understand their biases and how those biases impact their actions and decisions. We will also promote active civic participation by encouraging all employees to vote and giving them the paid time off to do so. And we will seek out input from our Board and other stakeholders on additional improvements we can make.
3. Finally, AAMI leadership will share information with our employees on actions they can take as individual citizens to potentially spur positive change such as encouraging others to vote, making conscious choices about shopping at minority-owned businesses and educating themselves about systemic racism.
Read the full article on AAMI’s website.
