Sign
9BRT, Brian Rafael Také, home

The #ENOUGH petition

Thursday to Monday. No toothbrush. No toilet paper. Nothing.

Enough. Put your name on it.

Day 1Launched today at 2:30 p.m.

Just launchedLive and counting

Add your name

What you're signing

To the Mayor of St. Louis, the Board of Aldermen, and the Commissioner of Corrections:

People booked into the City Justice Center on a Thursday can sit there until Monday with no toothbrush, no soap, no toilet paper and no shower. They call it the weekend special. That is not a budget problem. It is a decision. We ask the city to make a different one:

  • A hygiene kit, with a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and toilet paper, in every person's hands within one hour of booking, seven days a week, holidays included.
  • A shower within 24 hours of booking and every day after, including Thursday through Monday, not the three a week the jail's own policy promises and misses.
  • Somebody from outside checks: a monthly public count of how many people were held over a weekend, for how long, and what they were given.

A toothbrush costs less than a dollar. We're asking for the dollar, and the dignity.

Why this one is personal

It's happened to me. More than once.

Once before they said they'd fixed it, and once after. Four days in a cell with nothing to brush your teeth with, nothing to wash with, and no toilet paper: the first time, I asked, and I was told to use my hand. Nobody convicted of anything. That's the weekend special, and most of this city has no idea.

So on New Year's Eve at midnight I'm jumping a 16-foot gap, 10 feet up, on one wheel, in the street downtown. Then Project 950 goes out: 950 hygiene kits, 314 from the city and 636 from the county, handed to the Justice Center for everyone booked over a weekend, the night they come in. The jump gets the city to look. The kits are the point.

Your end is your name. Not a dollar. Every name on this list says St. Louis has decided that a toothbrush and a bar of soap are not too much to ask. Enough.

Brian Rafael Také

Sign it

Under 13? Ask a parent to sign. Kept on file: your name, your neighborhood, and anything optional you add. Your email is used only for updates on the jumps, and only if you ask for them. To take your name off, email btake71@gmail.com or message @btake on HAIL.

79 neighborhoods

The goal is all 79.

  • Academy
  • Baden
  • Benton Park
  • Benton Park West
  • Bevo Mill
  • Botanical Heights
  • Boulevard Heights
  • Carondelet
  • Carr Square
  • Central West End
  • Cheltenham
  • Clayton-Tamm
  • Clifton Heights
  • College Hill
  • Columbus Square
  • Compton Heights
  • Covenant Blu Grand Center
  • DeBaliviere Place
  • Downtown
  • Downtown West
  • Dutchtown
  • Ellendale
  • Fairground
  • Forest Park Southeast
  • Fountain Park
  • Fox Park
  • Franz Park
  • Gravois Park
  • Hamilton Heights
  • Hi Pointe
  • Holly Hills
  • Hyde Park
  • Jeff-Vander-Lou
  • Kings Oak
  • Kingsway East
  • Kingsway West
  • Kosciusko
  • Lafayette Square
  • LaSalle Park
  • Lewis Place
  • Lindenwood Park
  • Marine Villa
  • Mark Twain
  • Mark Twain I-70 Industrial
  • McKinley Heights
  • Midtown
  • Mount Pleasant
  • Near North Riverfront
  • North Hampton
  • North Pointe
  • North Riverfront
  • O'Fallon
  • Old North St. Louis
  • Patch
  • Peabody Darst Webbe
  • Penrose
  • Princeton Heights
  • Riverview
  • Shaw
  • Skinker DeBaliviere
  • Soulard
  • Southampton
  • Southwest Garden
  • St. Louis Hills
  • St. Louis Place
  • The Gate District
  • The Greater Ville
  • The Hill
  • The Ville
  • Tiffany
  • Tower Grove East
  • Tower Grove South
  • Vandeventer
  • Visitation Park
  • Walnut Park East
  • Walnut Park West
  • Wells Goodfellow
  • West End
  • Wydown Skinker

Every neighborhood in the city, on one list. The goal is all 79.