Crime

March For Our Lives launches billboard campaign

FLORIDA COURIER — Like ticker tape, the messages quickly scroll on the digital billboards.“I saw my brother get shot. I saw my sister get shot. I saw my son get shot,” the words flow in New York’s Times Square. They are the latest anti-gun violence messages from the March For Our Lives group, which was founded by the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre last year in Parkland.

Published

7 years ago

May 1, 2019

Oakland Post

By Johnny Diaz

Like ticker tape, the messages quickly scroll on the digital billboards.

“I saw my brother get shot. I saw my sister get shot. I saw my son get shot,” the words flow in New York’s Times Square.

They are the latest anti-gun violence messages from the March For Our Lives group, which was founded by the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre last year in Parkland.

The digital billboards sponsored by the nonprofit group went up Monday, April 15, and will remain in place throughout this month.

“For the next two weeks, a series of billboards in Times Square will remind Americans that we must come together to save lives,” wrote Brendan Duff, a co-founder of March For Our Lives and a communications strategist for the group — in an opinion piece he wrote with Lauren Hogg about the billboards.

Duff graduated from Stoneman Douglas and his brother was a freshman at the school during the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre that killed 17 students and staff and wounded 17 others.

‘WE WANT CHANGE’

The group expects the billboards to reach about 5 and a half million people.

After the messages roll on the billboards, they suddenly shatter into digital glass with the words, “Enough. We want change” on a yellow background. There is also a number (954-954), which is Broward’s main area code, for people to text to get more information about the group and local chapters.

“The Times Square billboards are meant to reach people from around the world in an impactful way, and like all of our messages, they are meant to be accessible to those willing to fight for safer communities, schools, concert venues, places of worship, and everywhere the threat of gun violence exists,” added Duff, a student at Elon University in North Carolina.

Previous ads by the group, including one meant to get people to the polls in November, included a video that depicted a gun firing bullets through a school hallway.

This article originally appeared in the Florida Courier.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

Published

3 days ago

December 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

1 week ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.