Police too often claim that confusion during an encounter caused them to fire fatal shots, as in the case of Patrick Lyoya. But there are solutions.
Police Brutality
Author and legal scholar Elie Mystal’s first book argues that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are deeply flawed, but that it’s still possible to use them to protect the rights of women and people of color.
In his new book, Kyle T. Mays argues that the violence of policing has always been intimately tied to U.S. democracy.
The demands to defund the police are linked to the call for ending militarism. There is a strong case to be made for these movements to join forces against both forms of violence.
This special audio report from YES! and Public News Service explores the ways communities affected by police violence are organizing to keep each other safe, in Minneapolis and beyond.
Opinion | Black Lives Matter | Racism | Minneapolis | Minneapolis Police Department | Racial Justice | Racial Equity | Daunte Wright | George Flyod | Gun Violence | #BlackLivesMatter
No more reforms. It’s time for true transformation.
There is a long history of racism in U.S. policing. For all Americans to be truly safe, it is important to weed out White supremacy, especially in the institution sworn to protect us all.
“No way would Black or Brown people be treated that way had they attacked a symbol of our democracy.”
After more than 100 days of continual demonstrations, protesters in Portland are looking to the future—and each other—for ways to sustain their movement for Black lives.
“Protesting ultimately isn’t safe and we’re not trying to say that it is,” says one Portland street medic. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t take care of each other.”
Portland, Oregon’s five months of ongoing protests in support of Black lives are sustained by a vast, multifaceted, and ever-evolving network of activists, organizers, and mutual aid.
Demanding an end to the escalating violence of Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad has mobilized youth across religious and ethnic divides.
In the wake of another police killing of an unarmed Black man struggling with a mental health disability, I asked what cops—and everyone—can do to help.
“I placed the phone call for my brother to get help, not for my brother to get lynched," says Joseph Prude.
Analysis | Federal Agents | Ciudad Juarez | George Floyd | Mexico | Kenosha | Wisconsin | Jacob Blake
Militarized federal interventions can actually escalate conflict and often leave the underlying causes of protests or crime unresolved.
Historically, police have used their legal authority to protect businesses and private property over the working class.
The police killing of João Pedro Mattos Pinto, a 14-year-old Black Brazilian in Rio de Janeiro, unmasked the scope of police brutality amid a pandemic and led to an unprecedented court decision.
Cities imagine taking away resources from racist, oppressive policing and putting it toward public safety and social services.
“If this moment can be sustained through further conversations, I think there can be a breakthrough.”
Lawmakers across the country are proposing policy measures to cut or loosen ties to traditional policing.
The message sent to police through arming them with military equipment is that they are in fact at war.
The focus on reforms like improved training doesn’t solve racially biased policing. That’s because of the nature of policing itself.
Cellphone videos of vigilante violence and fatal police encounters should be viewed with the solemn reserve of lynching photographs.
George Floyd’s death—and so many before his—was avoidable. But until Black Lives Matter to elected officials, police officers, and White Americans, the uprisings will continue.
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