Police

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/16/2021
  

  Police Unions Lose Bid to Keep Disciplinary Records a Secret

  The records would include records of civilian complaints, internal investigations of misconduct, and interdepartmental claims of harassment by superior officers. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/9/2021
  

  What ‘Defund the Police’ Really Means

  by Simon Balto

  The debate about "defunding police" must return to the community-driven vision of activists like assassinated Black Panther Fred Hampton, who envisioned a program of community empowerment that could divert the vast resources spent on policing toward other social ends. 

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• SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
  2/3/2021
  

  Group Asks Florida Police Department to Remove Confederate Flag from Badges

  Pensacola's Citizens Police Advisory Board recommended that the badge design be changed to remove the image of the flag of the Confederate States of America.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/8/2021
  

  The Inaction of Capitol Police Was by Design

  by Kellie Carter Jackson

  "Police brutality against Black Americans and police inaction toward white Americans is not some surprising anomaly; it is the status quo."

• 
• 1/10/2021
  

  Images of the Capitol Riot Reflect a National Crisis

  by Danielle Taana Smith

  Treating Trumpism as an aberration rather than as the eruption of deep-seated impulses to bigotry and violence is a dangerous delusion. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  

  No One Watches the Capitol Police Closely. No Wonder they Failed

  by Rosa Brooks

  "It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that racial bias made it difficult for Capitol Police officials to perceive the largely White crowds as the threat that they were."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/22/2020
  

  How Cities Lost Control of Police Discipline

  The New York Times has published a deep dive into the history of police union contracts, which, in the wake of protests in cities like Detroit, became extremely powerful shields for police departments and individual officers from accountability for misconduct. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/22/2020
  

  Trump Loyalists Harboring Martial Law Fantasies Don’t Know Their History

  by Gillian Brockell

  Michael Flynn's casual mention that martial law has ben invoked "64 times" flagrantly ignores the context of those events. What he proposes for Trump to do is unprecedented.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  12/15/2020
  

  What Obama Gets Wrong on 'Defund the Police'

  by Austin McCoy

  "If political budgets are moral documents, then divesting heavily from institutions that have the capacity to perpetuate harms is the moral thing to do."

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  12/11/2020
  

  Biden Made Big Promises On Juvenile Justice. Activists Worry It's Not Enough

  Historian David Stein argues that social movements can't expect the Biden administration to voluntarily commit to deep reforms of juvenile justice systems; they must organize and exert pressure to force those changes. 

• 
• SOURCE: Rolling Stone
  11/19/2020
  

  The Untouchables: An Investigation into the Violence of the Chicago Police

  by Paul Solotaroff

  Historian Simon Balto is among experts who place the Chicago Police Department's treatment of the city's Black communities in historical perspective. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/13/2020
  

  35 Years After MOVE Bombing That Killed 11, Philadelphia Apologizes

  Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a row house occupied by members of a Black militant group in 1985, starting a fire that destroyed 60 homes and killed 11 people.  

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/2/2020
  

  Kentucky State Police Quoted Hitler and Encouraged Cadets to be ‘Ruthless’ in a Training Program

  The rhetoric in the slide show is consistent with “warrior-style” police training, which teaches officers to dehumanize people to act aggressively and forcefully. It also trains officers to approach every encounter with citizens as having a possibility of becoming dangerous or fatal.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/2/2020
  

  ‘I Am On Your Side’: How the Police Gave Armed Groups a Pass in 2020 (video)

  Armed groups showed up to scores of racial justice protests since May. Video shows how police officers at times let them operate freely.

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  10/20/2020
  

  The Crimes of the Campus Police

  by Grace Watkins

  "The problems with the campus police are already apparent to anyone willing to look, and gender-based violence by campus officers is an important part of the case for abolition."

• 
• SOURCE: The City
  10/20/2020
  

  Unions Seize on Ex-Cop’s Academic Flap in Push to Keep NYPD Misconduct Records Secret

  St. John’s University students posted adjunct professor Richard Taylor’s police complaint history after what they called a racist lesson. The school suspended him — fueling cops’ latest argument for keeping their records under wrap.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  10/8/2020
  

  Throughline: The United States vs. Billie Holiday (audio)

  Billie Holliday's legal problems over drugs were made more difficult by her refusal to stop performing the anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit." 

• 
• SOURCE: Paris Review
  10/5/2020
  

  Memory Haunts: John Edgar Wideman's Fictionalized Account of the 1985 MOVE Bombing

  by Imani Perry

  Wideman's account of events leading to the bombing of MOVE by Philadelphia police "is not just a map of the city but of the nation and our collective condition."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  10/1/2020
  

  Black Women are Leading the Movement to End Police Violence

  by Keisha N. Blain

  Throughout the 20th century Black women have led movements in protest of police violence and unequal treatment under law. Today's protests carry on that legacy. 

• 
• SOURCE: WBUR
  9/29/2020
  

  Power, Propaganda And What Justice Might Look Like For Breonna Taylor (audio)

  Historian Keisha Blain joins "On Point" to discuss the decision not to charge most of the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor during a botched search warrant at her residence.