police brutality
-
Because We Live In a World In Which Hoodies Are Apparently Illegal, Two Black Men Were Arrested for Nothing
In a perfect world, black people wouldn’t face incessant discrimination over our choice of dress, dialect, impeccable seasoning prowess, or how we chose to do our hair. But because certain occupants of “The Land of the Free” and “Home of the Brave” won’t ever leave us the hell alone, innocuous clothing like hooded sweatshirts have…
-
NAACP LDF Calls for Cancellation of Speaking Engagement From Cop Who Killed an Unarmed Black Man
On Sept. 16, 2016, former police officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher during a routine traffic stop. Despite him being unarmed and having his hands raised in the air, Shelby lied to a jury and told anyone who would listen that she “feared for her life.” And after being acquitted of murder, she…
-
Grand Jury Indicts Virginia Cop For Shooting Unarmed Black Man … Again
The above picture is not a glamour shot; it’s a group photo and it is historic. It is a photograph of every single prosecutor in America who has successfully indicted more than one case of an on-duty police shooting. One person. Stephanie Morales. On Nov. 1, a Portsmouth, Va., grand jury issued a true bill…
-
It’s Time to Listen to Black Women. We’ve Been Talking About Police Sexual Violence for a Long Time
“It’s never true that *no one* is talking about a thing. It’s often true that *not enough* people are talking about a thing …,” anti-violence activist Mariame Kaba recently tweeted from her popular @prisonculture account. That is certainly true of sexual violence by police officers, described as something “no one talks about” in a recent…
-
TV Crew Filming Police Brutality Scene in Eric Garner’s Neighborhood Kicked Out by Angry Residents
Sometimes you have to admit when you’re wrong. For instance, I was always puzzled why people felt the need to defend monuments to the dead, such as Confederate monuments, as if history could be confined to a slab of stone or a sliver of real estate. Aside from the obvious racial implications, I thought those…
-
#SayHerName: Florida Police Viciously Beat 14-Year-Old Black Girl for ‘Resisting Arrest’
Though the modern narrative on police brutality tends to focus on murdered black men and boys, black women and girls are also the victims of over-policing in black communities. Through hashtags like #SayHerName, organizations like the African American Policy Forum have been shouting from the rooftops for years that black women—cis and trans—are also vulnerable…
-
Cops Sexually Assault At Least 100 Women Every Year and No One Talks About It
When discussing America’s police state, we often talk about “black bodies.” The conversation is peppered with words like “brutality” and “police violence.” But no one talks about another brutal act of violence committed by law enforcement figures. We have known about it for years but have mostly overlooked it. Everyone—including this writer—has the information but…
-
This Is the Police Interaction Video Texas Students Must Watch to Graduate High School
In an effort to repair trust between Texas citizens and law enforcement, all high school students in the state must take a class and watch a 16-minute training video that guides them on how to behave during a traffic stop. The course, which also aims to reduce tragic interactions between the police and citizens, is…
-
What We Really Learned from the Cop Who Taught an 11-Year-Old Black Boy With a BB Gun ‘A Lesson’
It’s a sorry state of affairs when mainstream media outlets are praising public servants for performing their jobs adequately, but that’s apparently where we are in 2018. On Wednesday, CNN published an article titled, “Instead of firing at an 11-year-old with a bb gun, an Ohio officer teaches him a lesson.” The piece focuses on…
-
Morehouse Grad Who Died After Being Arrested, Tased by California Police Officers, Was Unarmed, Had Mental Health Issues
San Mateo County officials are looking into the death of an unarmed black man who died shortly after being arrested and Tased by sheriff’s deputies two weeks ago. As USA Today reports, 36-year-old Chinedu Valentine Okobi was reportedly running in and out of traffic on a busy street in Millbrae, Calif. on Oct. 3 when…