Ford employees are pressing the company to stop making police cars amid a national uprising against police brutality.
Ford employees made the lawsuit in a letter to CEO Jim Hackett and CEO Bill Ford that was recently distributed at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, according to press reports.
“Throughout our history, the vehicles that Ford employees design and build have been used as accessories to combat brutality and oppression,” the letter read, according to an excerpt published by the automotive news website Jalopnik. . “As an undeniable part of that history and system, we have long ‘thought and acted differently’ about our role in racism.”
The excerpt also says that a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, whose death sparked a massive wave of protests across the country, alongside a Ford police interceptor. Concerned employees reportedly want Ford to take action before July 15.
In response, CEO Hackett indicated that Ford will not be out of the market any time soon. While condemning the “systemic repression and racism” evident in some police encounters, Hackett said that “the problems that affect the credibility of the police have nothing to do with the vehicles they drive.”
He also suggested that Ford could help the cause by using their cars to provide data to “make the police safer and more responsible” instead of taking away their vehicles, which would “harm their safety and [dificultaría] let them do their job. ”
–
