For those of you who live in the New York area, the situation reached a critical point for women and girls last summer. I'm sure you've heard about the following incidents of police abuse of women, among others I won't list here. Help us tell the stories of women and the about the very public and very private ways in which they confront police brutality.

Help us end state violence. Help us end abuse.

• Two Cops Charged With Raping An East Village Woman
• A Cop in Inwood Was Caught Raping a Woman Behing A Building at Gunpoint
  
• Police Shoot A Mid Town Woman
• Cops Drag Woman at Occupy Wall Street By Her Hair & Pepper Spray Others

Help us make the invisible, visible and help tell all our stories and give voice to those are are not usually given the opportunity to speak. The movement to end police violence can only be stronger if we add all of our voices and demand rights, demand dignity and harm-doers be held accountability.

• Give $10, $15, anything you can to support the completion of this film. 
• Begin at the $25 level of donation suggested. Joining our advisory board is optional.
• TELL YOUR FRIENDS!
• Join the Executive Producer's Circle and give $250 or more.
• Create a Giving Circle of your own and host a screening of the trailer with your friends, family, colleagues and ask them to donate.

UNDER SIEGE: THE POLICING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN AMERICA is a groundbreaking documentary that will present the unique voices and the intimate stories of  women and girls who have experienced law enforcement violence as well as gender-and-race-based forms of police misconduct and abuse, but their cases garner virtually no national attention. VIEW AN ADDITIONAL VIDEO CLIP: "Pulled Over In a Deserted Area".  

Our stories matter and can bolster the case for civil rights and human rights for everyone in communities especially, heavily policed by law enforcement.

-- Driving While Female,  a national report produced in 2002 highlights many of the same types of police violence faced by women in 2011. The report highlights cases where police officers use their authority, often in traffic stops, to harass or assault women drivers. Instead of issuing these women a traffic ticket police force these women to strip and walk home, beat, rape or coerce them to perform sexual favors as the price of avoiding a traffic ticket. The abuse runs the gamut from harassment to sexual assault and even murder.

"None of these women�s names, their experiences or their stories come to mind when we think of police brutality or police violence.  Such cases fall outside the scope of mainstream discourse around police misconduct and brutality, which, more often than not, rightly centers the experiences of young men of color presumed to be straight, but excludes of those of women, including young women of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, including LGBT people of color." -Andrea Ritchie. 

How much stronger could the movement be if we added the lives of women and girls, and that of other sexual minorities and their experiences with gendered-forms of violence.

Under Siege: The Policing of Women and Girls in America will center police violence against women within the broader debate and advocacy for police reform and give voice to the women and girls who have not found justice. An 11 minute trailer provides an introduction to the complex relationship women and girls have with police, but as this is a work-in-progress, only with further production will the story take shape.