100 California medical school students stage 'die-in' advocating for healthcare equality

Alyssa Rege -

Roughly 100 medical students from the UC Davis School of Medicine staged a "die-in" protest April 17 at the Sacramento, Calif.-based institution to draw attention to the public health component of police violence, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The protest was staged by the UC Davis chapter of White Coats 4 Black Lives, a national group founded in 2015 in the aftermath of several high-profile nationwide incidents involving the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of white police officers.

White Coats 4 Black Lives aims to draw attention to the notion police brutality should be treated as a public health crisis, the report states. The group also aims to mitigate inequities in how healthcare is delivered.

During the April 17 protest, students wore white lab coats and held signs or cellphones in their hands to lie in solidarity with Stephon Clark, 22, who was killed by police officers in south Sacramento last month. The officers involved in the incident claimed Mr. Clark had been holding a gun. However, police did not find evidence of a gun, only a cellphone, The Sacramento Bee reports.

"We're basically just standing with our community," Asadullah Awan, a UC Davis School of Medicine student and one of the organizers for the event, told The Sacramento Bee. "We're demanding police accountability. We're demanding our healthcare institutions do more trauma-informed care within our communities."

The protest at UC Davis as part of a national movement, with similar protests staged at medical schools nationwide, according to the report.

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