FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-- 22 Feb 2019
Justice 911 Launches to Advocate for Safe 911 Response
Today, Gordie Bailey's birthday, Justice 911 launches a campaign to make sure that when a bystander or friend calls for help, they get appropriate medical aid--not arrested by police and jailed where injury or death is a real possibility. This effort includes the announcement of justice911.org and three demonstrations on the University of Virginia Charlottesville campus.
Our focus will begin on the University of Virginia, the home of the Gordie Center, named after Gordie Bailey who died as a result of a hazing incident in college just three weeks into his freshman year. No one called 911 to help him, resulting in death from alcohol poisoning. His family set up the Gordie Center to encourage people to call for help when finding someone in need. This valiant effort has been reasonably successful and needs to continue--please donate to the Center which importantly also focuses on reducing alcohol consumption.
What needs to accompany a Gordie Call for help is a 911 response that treats the call seriously and understands how to deal with impaired persons. The call also depends on a complete absence of fear about law enforcement repercussions. Neither is happening at UVA, despite such representations to students, so today we announce the website, justice911.org, and that we will be holding a series of three demonstrations on the UVA campus. Two will be warm ups before spring break to raise initial awareness as well as to remind students to use caution with alcohol over break and to stick together, and further to request first responders to be compassionate and embrace the latest crisis intervention training for dealing with impaired persons of any kind.
The first demonstration will be next Thursday 28 February on the Newcomb Hall Plaza from 11:30AM to 1:30PM; the second will be on Tuesday 5 March at the same time and location. We plan to have a larger gathering after spring break with the time and location to be announced. Please join our Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter, both to stay up to date and so that we can bring continuous pressure to bear for change.
While our focus is on UVA, we strongly encourage parallel efforts at high schools and colleges across the country. Let's make "Gordie Call" as ubiquitous as 911. Getting help for a friend in need never seems like your problem until it hits out of the blue. Please help and share our site and Facebook pages with students, parents, PTAs, police departments, EMS departments, hospitals and legislators at all levels. Organizations with similar goals please connect with us. Let's achieve changes BEFORE anyone has to experience the neverending misery of losing people they love.
John Nelson
Justice 911.org
#rememberGordie #rescuenotarrest #uva
dobetter@justice911.org
@justice9_1_1
https://www.facebook.com/groups/122672575081522/