On Wednesday, April 26th, the Irwindale Police Department and the city of Irwindale will take part in “Denim Day 2017," a campaign by the organization
“Peace Over Violence” designed to raise awareness to the impact of sexual violence.
On this day, city employees are invited to wear denim jeans to work for the day and our police officers will don their "Class C" uniforms consisting of "jeans and polo shirts" in lieu of their regular patrol uniforms.
At 4:00 PM that afternoon, residents and local businesses are invited to join our police officers, Irwindale City Council members, and other city of Irwindale employees for a walk around the Irwindale Civic Center and Irwindale City Park to promote our city's participation in the "Denim Day" campaign. Representatives from “Peace Over Violence” will also be in attendance.
The walk will begin in front of the Irwindale City Hall at 4:00 PM and everyone participating is asked to wear their denim jeans in honor of "Denim Day".
The "Denim Day" campaign was originally triggered by a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped her rapist remove her jeans, thereby implying consent. The following day, the women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim.
“Peace Over Violence” developed the "Denim Day" campaign in response to this case and the activism surrounding it. Since then, wearing jeans on "Denim Day" has become a symbol of protest against erroneous and destructive attitudes about sexual assault. For more info about Denim Day, please visit their website:
www.denimdayinfo.org
We invite our residents and everyone at "Team Irwindale" to take part the day's events and to support this worthwhile campaign.