stop and frisk
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Iowa Judge Drops Charges Against Black Man Stopped for Jaywalking by Cop Who Waved for Him to Cross the Street
Charges have been dropped against a Black man who was arrested in Iowa City, Iowa, last year after he was stopped by a police officer for jaywalking. Based on police body camera footage, a federal judge decided that what the arresting officer purported to be a legitimate stop was really a clear case of racial…
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Versace Executive Stopped in Beverly Hills Accuses Cops of Racial Profiling. He’s Right, but Wypipo Will Never Admit It
Here’s a question that I feel like I’ve been asking myself for as long as I’ve had a driver’s license: Why is it that no matter how minor the original offense, cops always ask to search for weapons and drugs after stopping Black people? To be fair, I have no concrete proof that this only…
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How Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams Envisions the Future of Policing in New York City
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is not, by any means, a prison or police abolitionist. But you may be forgiven for thinking so if you listen to some of the language he uses to describe his vision of what the future of public safety could look like. “Hopefully one day we can evolve to the…
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NYPD Disbanding Plainclothes Anti-Crime Unit, aka 'Last Chapter' of Stop and Frisk
Calls for police departments to be defunded, dismantled and outright abolished have grown nationwide over the last month. New York has responded to these calls by closing a 600-person plainclothes unit. Which, uh, is something I guess? The anti-crime unit was responsible for finding and getting guns off the street, often employing the questionable stop-and-frisk…
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Oprah Doesn’t Know One Black Man Who Hasn’t Been Racially Profiled, Including Stedman Graham
In a recent Zoom conversation titled, WW Presents: Your Life in Focus: A Vision Forward, Oprah and longtime friend Gayle King discussed the past weekend’s protests, which popped off following the police killing of George Floyd. (By the way 50 Cent, here’s some of the easily Google-able information you could’ve come across!) “I cannot stop…
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Anybody But Bloomberg: New Yorkers of Color Pen Open Letter Rooting for Everybody Except Mike Bloomberg
More than 90 New York activists, citizens, politicians, city officials, and religious leaders who survived the Bloomberg administration have united to pen an open letter in an attempt to shed light on “The Real Mike Bloomberg.” The missive from the group described as “New Yorkers of Color” is an appeal to voters in the remaining…
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I Can't Believe Black People Might Actually Vote for Michael Bloomberg
First, you try to get free. Margaret Garner tried to get free. On January 28, 1856, Margaret, her husband, their four children and 11 of their fellow enslaved freedom-seekers stole their master’s horse, sleigh and gun and absconded from their Boone County, Ky. plantation owner, Archibald K. Gaines. The family crossed the frozen Ohio River…
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NYPD ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Numbers Up 22 Percent in 2019
The controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy of the New York Police Department has spent a great deal time in the news lately as former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg—who is currently running for president—has been repeatedly called to task for the policy he supported up until recently. Bloomberg did an about-face on the policy back in November, as…
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Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘Black People Like Me’ Super Bowl Ad Was Just as Cynical as Donald Trump’s
Two white billionaires, President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pitched their 2020 campaigns during Super Bowl LIV last night. Both prominently featured black subjects—Bloomberg’s highlighted his record on gun control and combating gun violence, while Trump highlighted Alice Marie Johnson, a black woman Trump pardoned after being petitioned directly about…