2015-2016

‘Where was our independence?’ The persistent questions about the IPCC’s Mark Duggan investigation

Last week the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report into the death of Mark Duggan exonerated the officers involved – and was immediately condemned by the family as a ‘whitewash’. IRR News analyses previously unreleased internal documents that shed new light on the IPCC’s investigation in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI)[1] reveal the IPCC chose to withhold ballistics information from the public for several days following the shooting. This withheld information was of vital public concern as it proved that a bullet lodged in a police officer’s radio was from…

Forced reforms, Mixed results

In Detroit, the Justice Department forced reforms on police after officers fatally shot 47 people in five years, including six who were unarmed. The overhaul took 11 years and eight police chiefs. In Los Angeles, Justice intervened after police officers in an anti-gang unit were accused of beating and framing people. The reforms cost taxpayers an estimated $300 million. In New Orleans, Justice stepped in to overhaul the police department after officers over 17 months shot 27 people, all of whom were black. The changes­ have fueled departures from the ranks and deterred some officers from pro­active policing. ABOUT this…

Policing the Police

Could Ferguson Win Its Case Against the Justice Department? February 11, 2016/ by Sarah Childress Senior Digital Reporter, FRONTLINE Enterprise Journalism Group A few weeks ago, it seemed like Ferguson, Mo. might actually enter into an agreement to overhaul its police and city court. City officials had reached a tentative agreement with the Justice Department in January to implement widespread reforms, including retraining police officers, restructuring the city court and removing rules in the city code that police had used almost exclusively to penalize African-Americans. Now, change in the city that helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement following the police shooting…

Minneapolis Activists Continue Fight Against Systemic Racism and Police Violence

Nekima Levy-Pounds watched the scenes of officers slaying unarmed Black men replayed, one after another, in major cities across the United States, including New York, Charleston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Cincinnati. During all of them, she clung onto one hope: to never see the same stories unfold in Minneapolis, where she raises her 11-year-old son, heads the local NAACP and participates in the local Black Lives Matter movement. However, it’s clear that Minneapolis, too, is home to the kind of police violence that has inspired protests from Ferguson to Baltimore and led to the birth of Black Lives Matter, a…

Policing with accountability or policing with impunity?

Written by Liz Fekete“Media stigmatisation of poor multicultural neighbourhoods of Europe as strongholds of Islamist terrorism and organised crime is lending legitimacy to a more coercive, more militarised style of policing.’ “The Home Office is currently reviewing legal protection for police officers who shoot to kill as well as considering whether to transfer the lead role in fighting terrorism from Scotland Yard to the National Crime Agency. And a review of the rules on the use of lethal force is underway in France, where, in a separate move, President Hollande has asked parliament to approve changes to the French constitution,…

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